Sometimes it's the smallest feature in your smartphone that makes the biggest difference in user experience. Take screen timeout, for instance. You can probably think of plenty of times when your handset's display blacked out while you were in the middle of something. You could have been cooking with a recipe on the screen or looking at chords while you learned a new riff on your guitar.
One of the biggest things that differentiates Android from iOS is the app drawer. Instead of the operating system just tossing all of your app icons into a cluttered heap on your home screen, most can be tucked away neatly in the app drawer, which, in essence, is very similar to the Windows Start menu.
The coming year promises to be a good one for those of us watching the augmented and mixed reality world. And the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), starting Jan. 5 in Las Vegas, Nevada, for its 50th year, is bringing 2017 in with a bang—we're expecting a ton of great announcements on the horizon.
You may remember my post from a couple weeks ago here on NextReality about the magical scaling ratios for typography from Dong Yoon Park, a Principal UX Designer at Microsoft, as well as developer of the Typography Insight app for Hololens. Well, his ideas have been incorporated into the latest version of HoloToolkit, and I'm going to show you how they work.
Google's Pixel and Pixel XL flagship phones are a rousing success, with consumers praising the fluid user experience and overall performance as two of the devices' biggest strengths. But even though Google may have knocked it out of the park with a set of Apple-like smartphones that "just work," there's still room for improvement in a few areas.
One of Android's biggest strengths relative to iOS is the fact that you can use any app to open compatible links, not just the stock ones that come preloaded on your device. When you tap a link that two or more of your apps are capable of opening, you'll see a message asking which app to launch it with—and from there, the choices are "Just Once" or "Always."
Can't figure out how to give songs star ratings anymore in your iPhone's Music app? That's because Apple removed the ability to do so from the new iOS 10 update, just as I expected they would. It's still possible to rate songs, it's just very irritating.
When Apple announced its new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus models in San Francisco, one of the biggest new features was an "IP67" water-resistance rating. Couple that with a few official renderings that show the new iPhone covered in water, and you'd probably arrive at one logical conclusion: The iPhone 7 is waterproof.
Koji is a culture made up of a certain fungus (mold) called Aspergillus oryzae, which has been used to ferment rice and soybeans in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean kitchens for centuries. Koji can actually have other involved fungi, but Aspergillus oryzae is the most common, and therefore the names can be used interchangeably. Its end purpose is to enhance the flavor of items like soy sauce, sake, and miso.
The new USB Type-C standard was supposed to revolutionize smartphone charging, but so far, it's done more harm than good. Many cable and charger manufacturers are struggling to keep their products in line with the proper USB-C specifications, so as a result, we now have to check to see if a cable is compliant before purchasing one.
One of the biggest causes of smartphone battery drain is the mobile data connection—particularly if you live in an area with poor reception. But, chances are, you don't actually need this connection most of the time, because you're probably connected to Wi-Fi for a good chunk of the day, which uses far less battery life.
Pokémon GO, the biggest augmented reality sensation ever, broke app store records this opening weekend. But it also did something even more important: it gamified physical activity.
Augmented and mixed reality experiences attempt to break us out of windowed computing experiences and allow us to place software anywhere in the room. But that software doesn't have to take a rectangular form—theoretically, the web doesn't have to restrict itself to a page in a browser any longer. Does this mark the end of the web browser entirely? Probably not. A lot of information works well on the page, and the Microsoft HoloLens still uses a pretty standard version of their own Edge brows...
Microsoft enjoyed a few months in the spotlight after releasing the developer version of the very first mixed reality (MR) headset, but now we're starting to see the competition jump in.
Out of all the new functionality introduced alongside Android 6.0 Marshmallow, a battery-saving feature called Doze Mode has been the biggest hit. Essentially, Doze waits until your device is laying flat and still, at which point it triggers an aggressive battery-saving mode that drastically increases standby time on your device.
With certain apps and games, it's all about the settings. In order to get your money's worth with one of these, you simply have to take the time to tweak and adjust various options, which is something a lot of users don't necessarily want to do.
GIFs are awesome, but GIFing from your keyboard is some next-level stuff, and Apple knows this. That's why they've included a way to find and send GIFs in Messages from the stock iOS 10 keyboard. However, iOS 10 is not out for the public just yet, so if you want to easily send GIFs in your messages, you'll have to settle for a third-party keyboard.
Welcome back, my tenderfoot hackers! Generally, you will want to perform a vulnerability scan before doing a penetration test. Vulnerability scanners contain a database of all known vulnerabilities and will scan your machine or network to see whether those vulnerabilities appear to exist. If they do, it is your job to test whether they are real and can be exploited.
Welcome back, my fledgling hackers! Hacking has a long and storied history in the U.S. and around the world. It did not begin yesterday, or even at the advent of the 21st century, but rather dates back at least 40 years. Of course, once the internet migrated to commercial use in the 1990s, hacking went into hyperdrive.
The Android Nougat preview build for Nexus devices comes packed to the brim with new functionality: multi-window mode, a dark theme, and a data-saver toggle, just to name a few. However, unless you have a Nexus device, it will be a while before you get these exciting new features by default.
Android's personal assistant is more than just a sassy backtalker—it's a full-on suite of all the information you could need at a given time. Google Now, as it's called, uses data from various sources to predict what you'll want to know before you even search for it, and it's an amazing experience once you've got everything set up.
Being able to customize the look and feel of your device is the main reason a lot of folks choose Android over iOS. And perhaps the single biggest way to visually overhaul your phone or tablet's UI is to apply an icon pack, which can liven up your home screen with bright colors or make things look a bit more classy with a sleek, minimalist style, for instance.
I'm starting to wonder if the people at Boston Dynamics have ever watched a Terminator movie. Not just because the robotics company with the oxymoronic name develops machines that are able to move around environments with animal- and human-like agility, but because the people testing them seem to take such joy in openly antagonizing their creations. It's one thing to tempt fate by creating superhuman robots that could potentially end mankind. You've reached a whole new level of hubris when yo...
My first ever post on here was 'Keeping your hacking identity secret' and it did very well, and its not something I see here on null byte. So read along.
Smelly foods are what make my culinary world "go 'round," so to speak. I grew up with fish sauce, learned to cook with and love fermented beans and veggies, and am one of the biggest garlic advocates I know... other than my husband, who thankfully shares the same smelly food sensibilities. (Let's put it this way: anyone that can stomach stinky tofu can handle anything I could possibly cook up.)
The competition between iOS and Android is fierce. Each operating system offers unique and powerful features, so it can be hard to choose which one you want. However, for iPhone users, a little tweaking and some themes can give your iPhone some of the key features and aesthetics of an Android.
In the recent hit movie Furious 7, the storyline revolves around the acquisition of a hacking system known as "God's Eye" that is capable of finding and tracking anyone in real time. Both the U.S. spy agencies and an adversarial spy agency (it's not clear who the adversary is, but the location is "beyond the Caucasus mountains," which could imply Russia?) desperately want their hands on this system.
Pop-Tarts are a pretty iconic breakfast food. And while I'm more of a bacon, eggs, and toast person myself... sometimes a sweet, gooey, artificially-flavored treat is just what you need in the morning. Yet, despite the fact that I do enjoy Pop-Tarts, I've always found them a little bit bland. Therefore I decided to make them better—by cooking with them.
Google just announced a new and improved Chromecast at an event in San Francisco this morning, and debuted a new "Chromecast Audio" for streaming music directly to any speaker. I'm sure you rushed off to the Google Store to buy one of these promising and powerful devices, but while you wait on the new one to come in the mail, your old Chromecast just got a lot more functional by way of a simple app update.
In general, the fingerprint scanner in Samsung's 2015 flagship phones is quick and accurate, but when you get that "No Match" message while trying to unlock your phone, it can be incredibly annoying. To help curb these issues, I'll go over three tips for speeding up the unlocking process that should work wonders on your Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+, or Note 5.
Many home chefs are deterred from whisk-intensive recipes such as mayonnaise because they seem to require more than two hands—which is obviously the maximum number we possess. One hand is required to stabilize the bowl, another must be whisking constantly... and a third hand is needed to pour a steady stream of oil.
Thanks to Smart Switch, it's easier than ever now to ditch your iPhone for a brand new Samsung device, like the Galaxy S6 Edge+ or Galaxy Note 5.
Apple's special September event just wrapped up with the company unveiling several new products, including the iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S Plus, iPad Pro, and the new Apple TV set-top box. In addition to hardware, Apple also discussed a couple of its latest software platforms, iOS 9 and watchOS 2. Check out everything that Apple unveiled below.
Quite a few things have changed with Windows 10, but one of the more central features that has received a makeover is the old Windows Explorer program, which has been renamed to File Explorer in this version.
There are certain ingredients that chefs regularly use to elevate their food beyond the status of what us mere mortals can create. Shallots are one. Good, real Parmesan cheese is another. And the rind of that real Parmesan cheese just so happens to be one of the culinary world's biggest kept secrets.
Other than salt, there's no ingredient that's as big a kitchen staple as olive oil. And just like salt, there are a million little known uses for it.
Here at Food Hacks, we're very fond of finding ways to regrow food. That means taking things like carrot tops and leftover bits from garlic, onions, chives, and other herbs and aromatics to create mini reusable herb gardens.
Welcome back, my novice hackers! Previously in my "Spy on Anyone" series, we used our hacking skills to turn a target's computer system into a bug to record conversations and found and downloaded confidential documents on someone's computer. In this tutorial, I will show you how to spy on somebody's Internet traffic.
In my last guide, I showed how you could crack the combination of any Master Lock combination padlock in 8 tries or less using my online calculator. Now, as promised, I'll be showing you how I devised the attack, which is based off the well-known technique that reduces the 64,000 possible combinations of a Master Lock down to just 100. Here, I will be drilling open a Master combo lock to show you how the insides work.
It's already that time of year again—LG has unveiled its latest high-end smartphone, dubbed the G4. In past iterations, LG released its flagship devices in the fall. But slowly over the course of the past 2 years, the release schedule has been bumped up to be more in line with HTC and Samsung's springtime releases, and further away from the sales-sucking iPhone event each fall.
