In February, the popular Facebook-owned WhatsApp Messenger service jumped on the "stories" bandwagon and replaced their in-app, text-based "About Me" status (you know, those lovely little messages where you can say "Sleeping" or "Not Sleeping" under the tiny nub of your profile picture). Taking its place was a clone of Snapchat's Stories feature, continuing the social media giant's recent trend of shamelessly copying Snapchat.
In a press event this past week at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, California, Unity Labs, the experimental and forward thinking arm of Unity, announced an upcoming toolset for developers in the augmented, mixed, and virtual reality space called the XR Foundation Toolkit (XRFT).
A few days ago, there were flying piranha, snakes, and dragons roaming around freely at the Anaheim Convention Center in California, but they weren't real or even hallucinations—they were holograms brought to life with the Microsoft HoloLens.
While all of my previous Have You Seen This? posts have all focused on individual HoloLens apps in the Windows Store, this time I'll be sharing a couple at once. These holographic applications are really simple in scope, so there is not a lot to say about them, yet they are interesting enough for me to want to share them with you.
It's 2017—new year, same us. We vow to keep scouring the net for the best how-tos and feature the makers and doers who create mind-blowing projects.
Usually, when I see a video that is captioned "wait for it," I'm quick to dismiss what could possibly come at the end of the clip. In this case, however, I was totally wrong and the final result was definitely worth the wait.
Here at NextReality, we talk a lot about the many different ways of controlling holograms in the HoloLens and other augmented and mixed reality devices; New and creative ways are coming more and more every day. Most recently is something called the HoloSuit. In the 25-second clip below, you can see a woman moving the arm of a jacket which in turn moves a 3D model of Darth Vader on the screen. It's a simple idea with big potential.
From a quick, passing glance at a photograph, you may not notice that Jon Almeda's impressive displays of ceramics mastery are actually the size of coins. It's well-documented how much tiny art is loved by WonderHowTo, but this petite pottery may take the cake as the most impressive display of craftsmanship.
I bet you've never put much thought into the water and ice dispensers that comes preinstalled in a lot of modern refrigerators and freezers. For chilled water or perfectly formed ice cubes, all you need to do is push the button and wait, right?
A scary piece of malware just got a lot more terrifying this week. Security firm Comodo reports that "Tordow," a banking Trojan first uncovered in September 2016, received a massive update this December.
Origami is the Japanese art of folding paper, which has been around since the 1600s. The word origami comes from the two Japanese words ori, meaning "folding," and kami, meaning "paper."
Pennies may only be worth $0.01, but if you want a coin with everyone's favorite donut-eating dad on it, you're going to need to shell out a little bit more.
Having control of your basic motor functions is something most people take for granted, but for individuals with Parkinson's disease, that is not the case.
Today, December 7, it was officially announced that Magic Leap has found their replacement for the recently departed Brian Wallace. Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz has tapped Brenda Freeman, former EVP and Chief Marketing Officer of National Geographic Channel, as their new Chief Marketing Officer.
People have been transforming mud into art, aka pottery, for thousands of years. This is not a new phenomenon, but often the finished product has a certain utilitarian aesthetic, such as a bowl or vase.
Microsoft and Unity have been working closely to make sure that HoloLens and Windows Holographic are supported closely with the popular game engine. Unity released a special HoloLens Technical Preview version earlier this year based off of Unity 5.4, but the update today of the main Unity app, version 5.5, has all those Holographic enhancements built right in.
Justin Timberlake seems like a pretty cool guy overall—solid musician, decent actor, overall good person—but never in my wildest dreams would I think to spend 200 hours obsessively creating a giant portrait of his face.
In recent years, wave after wave of technological advancement has led us down roads that are beginning to look more and more like science fiction stories. In their efforts to bring us from science fiction to science fact, Microsoft Research showed us a new communication medium called Holoportation earlier this year—and now they have found a way to make this highly complex holographic system far more mobile.
Take one down, pass it around, 99 bottles on which to play classical music? As someone who has studied music extensively, I've seen many interpretations of famous pieces of music played on glass bottles, but hearing these four interpretations of famous pieces (not all classical) completely blew my mind.
Super Mario Bros. is one of the most renowned games in history. It helped resurrect a dying video game industry in the mid-'80s and still remains one of the best-selling video games of all time—one reason why the new NES Classic Edition is so popular and impossible to get these days. Its simple story of a plumber trying to rescue a princess resulted in a video game empire for Nintendo.
Looking to get seriously tatted up? Your best bet is probably to head Down Under. Meet Steve Butcher, a New Zealand native who is changing the tattoo game in a big way. While there are a lot of amazing artists out there, the level of detail Butcher is able to achieve is truly unbelievable.
In 4.74 seconds, I can barely bend over to tie my shoes, and somehow this guy managed to crush the human world record for solving the Rubik's Cube in that time exactly.
Damn right, you don't just eat 'em. When you're done with your next Pringles can, you can turn it into a kaleidoscope, a pinhole camera, and even a solar hot dog cooker. But Instructables user TheSpodShed may have just created the most awesome way to upcycle empty Pringles cans—use them as a mini MIDI drum kit for your mobile device. This tiny drum kit will let you rock your face off without pissing off all your neighbors.
To some people, Thanksgiving is merely quality time with family and friends that they can't get throughout the rest of the year. To others, it's that one time when it's okay to be a greedy hog and get hammered all weekend long.
Creative thoughts are fleeting, so when an idea strikes, you have to jot it down as quickly as possible or risk forgetting it altogether. Let's say you randomly think of a perfect tweet while you're using your phone. You exit whatever app you were using, head to the home screen, dig through your app drawer, open Twitter—and by the time you make it to the "What's happening?" screen, you totally forgot what you were going to say.
As Alfred monologued in The Dark Knight, "Some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn."
There was once a time when everyone scoffed at the turmeric tonic tea sold at the coffee shop I work at. Funny, because as of recently, we seem to be selling out. How can this be explained? Beyoncé must have been spotted buying turmeric beverages on the cover of some celebrity magazine. That's got to be the only way to explain its sudden popularity, right?
After many months of endless speculation over the mysterious augmented reality platform Magic Leap, software engineers worldwide have been waiting for any news of what development environment this amazing technology might use. Thanks to Paul Reynolds, the former Magic Leap Senior Director of SDKs and Apps, we no longer have to guess. Just like existing mixed, augmented, and virtual reality platforms, developers will be able to use their experience with Unity and the UNREAL engine.
Whatever you think of Google's new Pixel phones, the one thing we know for sure is that these are the most polarizing devices in recent memory. On the one hand, we've seen reviews in which longtime Android users say they'll be walking away from the OS all together thanks to Pixel. On the other hand, you've got the iPhone-obsessed David Pierce over at WIRED saying he'll be switching immediately.
Hello, Null Byters. I'm Barrow, and I'm excited to introduce myself as the new admin here on Null Byte. Just like previous admins have done before me, I will be writing new guides, updating older guides if they need it, and responding to some of your issues in the forum. Before I get started with any of that, though, I wanted to talk a little bit about myself and the future of Null Byte.
Autodesk offers some of the most popular software for computer-aided design (CAD) projects, which involve all sorts of 3D rendering. Their tools are clearly suited for use with the Microsoft HoloLens, but so far very little supports HoloLens development outside of Unity. Why is that?
Fall is here, and it's time for warm, filling meals... that don't involve a lot of effort, because it is getting cold outside and you spent a full day at work wishing you were on the couch with a blanket over your head, dammit.
When Facebook purchased WhatsApp for $19.3 billion back in 2014, we all knew this was coming—it just took longer than we thought. But starting today, the data mining became official, and now, information from your favorite messaging app is no longer out of reach for the world's biggest social media site.
When you want to read product reviews, you go to Amazon—regardless of whether or not you intend on buying the product from their website. By the same sense, when you want to read discussions about certain topics you come across on the internet, there's no better place than Reddit.
The decadent, chewy, fresh-from-the-oven brownie is a classic American dessert. US History Scene states that the first brownies ever made were a result of socialite Bertha Potter Palmer's request of her chef at Chicago's Palmer House Hotel in 1893 "to create a dessert that could be tucked into a box lunch for ladies to eat while attending the Columbian Exposition."
The internet, as I understand it, is a wonderful, magical place where people congregate to share memes and viral videos. Well, okay... there's a lot more to it than that, but let's just focus in on the good stuff.
In Italian, the word affogato means "drowned." Kind of a morbid name for such a delicious goodie, right? But there's a reason it's called that.
Greetings fellow students! I'm currently reading a book called "Violent Python: A Cookbook for Hackers, Forensic Analysts, Penetration Testers and Security Engineers"
Hello everyone. It's been a while since I've posted anything (with good reason). But, now that the digital dust has settled, it's time to be an adult about this. I will be continuing to post to Null Byte on a smaller scale, and will also fully participate in whatever communities Null Byte members branch into.
Hello people, I'm back for Part-3. In this part, as promised, we are going to create a client program and then we are going to test it with our server program made in Part-2.
