The all new HTC One M8 is the latest Android flagship making the rounds through major carriers hoping to beckon your purchase. Coming in at about $200 for most carriers with a contract, it makes a good case for itself with its advanced features and solid price point—but, there's another way to buy the One, and it's not from your carrier.
As Microsoft unveiled their new Windows Phone 8.1 software update yesterday, undoubtedly the most memorable takeaway was their showcase of Cortana. Competing directly against Apple's Siri and Google's Now, Cortana is Microsoft's entry into the digital voice assistant fray, and the official replacement to their search app.
Besides the obvious, fingernail polish can be pretty useful around the house—for men and women. It can keep your buttons from falling off, sort your keys, prevent your shoelaces and hoodie strings from fraying, and even curb rust rings in the shower. Turns out, nail polish also comes in handy on April Fool's Day.
In order to unleash the full potential of your Samsung Galaxy Note 3, you've got to root it. These days, it's easier than ever, and can be done by just plugging your device into a Windows computer and pressing one button. It's so easy, your grandmother could do it, so what's stopping you?
The Google Now Launcher that was introduced with the Nexus 5 seems to have a lot of folks torn. On the one hand, having a home screen page dedicated to Google Now, as well as the always-listening voice search, are killer features. On the other hand, its lack of customization options like home screen gestures and variable grid sizes has some people considering switching to third-party launchers.
While the Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy S4 are enjoying their official KitKat updates, those of us with Note 2s are left to play the waiting game. While we know our devices will eventually see an update to Android 4.4.2 KitKat, it's unclear when an official update for our devices will come.
Windows 8's interface was met with criticism when it was released, mainly directed at the tiled Start screen, a departure from Windows versions of old. Many felt that this new home screen style was better suited for mobile devices like Microsoft's Surface tablets and Windows Phones.
With the emergence of rumors that Amazon, Google, and Samsung are all making their foray into the gaming console market, it's a possibility that our Android-powered mobile devices might become tools that play a central role.
There are plenty of ways to customize your stock HTC One (or any Android device), from playing retro games to adding rotating live wallpapers. But to get the most out of your device, you need root access.
Whenever a new version of a phone comes out, there's always that one cool feature you wish you had on yours. For me, that's Group Play.
Recently, Google unleashed the Chromecast development kit, which lets developers add Chromecast streaming functionality to their own apps. However, there aren't many apps with Chromecast capabilities yet, and big companies and devs are still working on polishing their final products.
Welcome back, my novice hackers! This next subject might seem a bit obscure, but I promise you, this lesson will benefit you significantly either as a hacker or system admin. This tutorial will cover what is usually referred to as a regular expression, or regex for short.
Not too long ago, we told you about a new feature within Android KitKat that allowed for video recording directly from the screen of your Nexus 5. Though functional, the method was a bit clunky and involved hooking your phone up to your computer and sending over an ADB command to start the recording.
When you were younger, you probably had your parents bugging you not to have your cassette player headphones up too loud. For all you younger readers out there, it was probably a CD player. The even younger readers likely had an iPod or other MP3 player. Either way, your parents didn't want you to mess up your hearing, blasting that Limp Bizkit in your ears (wow, I'm showing my age here).
There's no shortage of reasons to love the One, yet a feature curiously omitted from the device, much to the chagrin of power users, is a multitasking button.
NSA aside, Apple makes it difficult for users to extract and download text messages from their iPhones onto a computer. For whatever reason (legal, devious, neurotic, etc), we've all found a time where we'd like to save backups of certain meaningful, important, or perhaps incriminating conversations (including all MMS or iMessage pictures and videos). While there are a handful of third-party applications that can help with this process, the majority of them cost money and implement certain te...
Your smartphone has a ton of ringtone options built in, but ringtones haven't really changed much in the past decade, and it's definitely not cool to hear someone in the supermarket with the same lame ringer. While replacing the stock sounds with a song of your choosing is the best way to keep your phone personalized, why not go a step further using a video?
The holiday season is almost over, bringing the year to an end, and what better way to end it than with some tonsil hockey from the dime across the room on New Year's Eve?
Assuming that you're not going to knit a sweater and celebrate New Year's Eve with Ryan Seacrest and Jenny McCarthy on ABC's “New Year's Rockin' Eve," it's a pretty safe bet to say that you're probably going to consume alcohol—a considerable amount of alcohol.
In spite of the degree of difficulty it is to install, CyanogenMod has steadily climbed the ladder to become one of the most popular third-party firmwares for Android devices.
From a fresh home install of Windows 7 (not factory install) this will guide you step by step to updating your Windows 7 and getting it up and running.
Attention all veterans and active-duty military personnel—this coming Tuesday, November 11th, is Veterans Day, that time of year where the whole country thanks us for our service. For the most part, a simple thanks will do, but some folks like to go above and beyond and give us veterans free or discounted meals and discounts on merchandise in stores.
My favorite type of video game is first-person shooters, and the one that started it all for me was GoldenEye 007. There was just something about the controls, fast-paced action, and free-roaming environment that got me hooked.
While still extremely awesome, the Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch is limited as to what you can download on to it, especially apps. It also doesn't have its own internet access (only Bluetooth), so apps like Instagram, Facebook, and Vine have yet to make their way to the Gear Store.
So, here we are with the second part to whats going to happen to Minecraft in 1.7 (you can see the first part here). Let's start off with the new biomes.
Let's face it, the stock YouTube app for Android kinda sucks. It has limited capabilities, at-time wavering connectivity, and the pop-up player it comes with is just not very good. If you want to enhance your mobile YouTube experience to how it should be, the answer lies within a third-party app called Viral HD YouTube Popup Player by Android dev Mata.
One of the coolest features that Samsung built into the Galaxy S4 is the infrared (IR) blaster and WatchON software to control your television. I've been using my GS4 for the past few weeks to control my DirecTV setup and it works great. Smartphones are truly becoming all-in-one devices these days.
Now that iOS 7 has rolled out to the general public, with an overwhelming fit of mass hysteria, it's only custom for people to start bitching about battery drain—and I don't blame them. I was experiencing some rapid battery drain after first updating my iPhone 5, as well.
Starting on Android 4.2, a new feature called Quick Settings was integrated into the Notification tray, which allows you to quickly turn on and off certain device features such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, etc. These toggles also provides a shortcut to the feature's more advanced settings by long-pressing on the icon.
If you've never played with a Nexus 10 tablet, then you probably have no idea that your Nexus 7 actually has a different user interface. For some reason, Google decided it was better for the Nexus 7 to use a phone UI instead of a tablet one, but luckily for us, we don't have to accept that.
There's no shortage of cool customizations for my Samsung Galaxy S3, except when it comes to the launcher. Sure, there a ton of Android launchers out there, like Nova Launcher or Apex Launcher, that allow you to customize app placement, app grouping, infinite scrolling, etc. There's even Facebook Home for those who are Facebook addicts.
There are very few things Android users would want to borrow from Apple's iOS, but let's move beyond the fanboy/girl biases and admit that Apple actually does a few things pretty well. One of those things is looks, and the new iOS 7 looks pretty amazing to me.
It starts innocently enough, with a nosy friend hovering over your shoulder to see what you're texting. Somehow, that doesn't satiate their inexplicable thirst for curiosity, so the first chance they get, they're rummaging through all of your super private photos—even though you told them not to.
All across the world, Nexus 7s have been secretly living a double life. The clean, simple look of the stock Holo user interface is nice if minimalism is your thing, but to softModders like me, Holo is bare, lacking style, overly blue, and an eyesore. It gets the job done, but I want something more customizable and visually stunning.
HTC's Sense 4 may be leaner and faster than previous versions, but one thing my EVO 4G LTE sorely lacked was the "Quick Settings" option that Sense 2 and 3 had. Developers were able to port it to Sense 4 for Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), but the only way to get this feature was to install a custom ROM. With the update from ICS to Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean), my EVO 4G LTE received the new Sense 4+ version. This new Sense made it possible to add widgets to the Notifications pull-down menu, so...
The battery in the Samsung Galaxy S4 may pack 500 more milliamps per hour than the old S3 battery, but that doesn't necessarily mean more battery life. High-powered devices need lots of juice, and the S4 is definitely more powerful than its predecessor. The new battery can handle a third more in standby days, and over twice as much in talk time hours. But, when you live on your phone all day long, that means nothing. You're battery is still going to have a hard time keeping up with you.
Nearly two years ago, Peter Chou, CEO of HTC, confirmed that the company would no longer be locking bootloaders. Whether or not they've actually lived up to this claim is debatable. Any phone bought from a wireless carrier comes locked. Only the new HTC One Developer Edition ships with an unlocked bootloader, and it does not have any carrier add-on software installed.
Last time, I showed how to start putting together an AC arc welder from scavenged microwave parts, focusing on the transformer modifications. Now, I'll show you how to finish up your DIY stick welding machine by fixing up the electrical system and performing the finishing touches.
Screenshots are great, but sometimes they don't tell the whole story. You can show off that new app you got or that awesome new live wallpaper, but a screenshot isn't going to get the point across. What exactly am I trying to show you in the screenshot above? You probably have no idea, and that's the point. You can't see the action I'm trying to demonstrate, but in a video you can.
We've all been there. Your phone's either dead or barely hanging on with a few minutes of life left, and you only have a small window of time to charge it before you need to head out. Sure, you can charge it for the few minutes you have, but what's the point if your device is going to die again in several minutes?