For the most part, people use real names on Facebook. That's all fine and well for keeping tabs on those you know, but it can make friendly Messenger chats feel oddly formal. Skirt around this stiffness by giving your friends nicknames in Messenger for Android and iOS, so your conversations reflect the way you and your friends communicate in real life.
To bring things up to code with a new FCC standard, Android recently added an "Emergency broadcasts" feature that will make your smartphone notify you whenever a potential safety threat or Amber Alert is posted in your area. Even if you have your phone set to silent, these emergency alerts will cause your device to emit a loud, piercing sound when a potential threat is nearby.
Blue has defined Facebook's color scheme since its inception. Both Facebook's main app and Messenger theme are blue, which means your chat bubbles, like emoji, and menu bar items are also. While certainly a satisfying color for chat, you may get sick of it after a while, especially when it's in every thread. Luckily, Facebook lets you customize the color of individual Messenger chats.
WhatsApp, like other popular messengers on iOS and Android, shows when recipients have read your sent messages with a blue double check mark indicator. On the flip side, for those of you who are bad at replying promptly or don't feel like replying at all, you can disable "read receipts" so the senders won't know when or if you even read their messages.
The subject line is a crucial part of an email, but you don't see it very often in texts. That's mostly because many people don't even know it can be done, and even if they do, why would they use it? Just like with emails, subject lines can make iMessages and SMS texts seem more important and more professional. Plus, they can help with organization and searching past messages, as well as make text bold.
Two years ago, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg kicked off the F8 Developers Conference keynote with augmented reality and the introduction of Facebook's AR camera platform, now known as Spark AR.
While painting in augmented reality is not a groundbreaking pursuit, the ability for Magic Leap One, iPhone and iPad, and Android users to collaborate remotely on virtual artwork would be.
With Magic Leap One approaching six months since launch, Magic Leap is fully focused on building a content ecosystem and developer community.
While the technology companies continue to drive forward with autonomous vehicles, Nissan's vision of the future of self-driving automobiles lies in a cooperative experience between human and machine, facilitated by augmented reality.
While the three new iPhones won't even be announced until Sept. 12 during Apple's fall event, case makers are already primed for the launch of the devices. Some case designs are already live on manufacturer websites, and you can even buy or preorder cases for the iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and iPhone XS Plus to have right now or on launch day.
The shifting sands of immersive computing, currently fluctuating between augmented reality and virtual reality, can be hard to navigate if you're only versed in one of the platforms. But a new series of videos from Leap Motion paints a picture of a near future world in which AR and VR will seamlessly merge together, forcing us to change the way we see both.
For those of us who love to multitask, picture-in-picture mode is a godsend. The feature, introduced in Android 8.0 Oreo, lets you enjoy videos in a floating window overlaid on top of another app. However, while the OS does have native support, only a select number of apps support the feature.
WhatsApp comes with a ton of great features that make it the go-to messaging app for millions of people around the world. Among these is the ingeniously simple Read Receipts that let you know your message has been viewed. If you want to read a message without alerting the sender, however, there are simple tricks you can perform to give yourself plausible deniability.
With Signal's class-leading end-to-end encryption, you can be sure your messages will remain secure as they travel to the recipient. However, once the message arrives, its privacy is completely dependent on the receiver, who could share it anywhere if they wanted. To patch this vulnerability, Signal added disappearing messaging.
Considered by many (perhaps unfairly) to be a very public failure, Google Glass can add another plot point to its comeback story, this time as a tool to teach social skills to children and adults with autism.
One of Android 8.0's central themes was battery improvements. Google implemented background restrictions and a few other under-the-hood changes, but the biggest battery-saving measure was almost user-hostile: A static notification that tells you when any of your apps are running in the background.
Meta Company has filed its response to allegations that the user interface for their augmented reality headsets infringe on six patents owned by a mostly-unknown company.
Back to the Future Part II missed wildly on many technological advances for the year 2015, such as flying cars and rehydration ovens. However, it connected on several predictions, such as video calling and biometric security, and it was in the ballpark (pun intended) on others, such as the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series.
While Apple's tech used for Face ID on the iPhone is impressive, it's debatable whether it's more convenient than Touch ID. There are also concerns that your face could be used to track shopping patterns or be seen during mass surveillance by intelligence agencies. More importantly, it could be easier for law enforcement, and even thieves, to force you to unlock your iPhone.
Former Google and Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski's scathing accusations challenging the physics behind Tesla CEO and founder Elon Musk's claims about Autopilot should force Musk to make his case that self-drive cars don't need LiDAR in the next few months.
Unless you're a WhatsApp pro user, you may be surprised to know that there are text formatting options that you can apply to your messages. Markdown characters can help you emphasize certain words or phrases by making them italicized or bold, and it'll even let you cross out words and change the font. It's one of those nice touches that isn't available in most other messaging apps.
In the race to outsmart "untreatable" antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea, one of the three new treatments on the track is about to enter Phase 3 clinical trials. Hopefully, it'll be widely accessible sooner rather than later, for the 78 million people who are diagnosed with gonorrhea each year.
Pokémon GO's augmented reality journey is continuing with Apple's newly announced ARKit. It's no surprise considering Pokémon GO is the largest mainstream augmented reality game, with 500 million downloads.
The roll-out of T-Mobile's hotly anticipated 'Digits' service is now underway. For those unfamiliar with what could be the un-carrier's next killer app, 'Digits' is basically a combination of Google Voice and AT&T NumberSync. With it, T-Mobile customers can use their number across any phone, tablet, wearable, or PC. That means you can give out your phone number and answer the call on any device you like.
The keynote at this week's Vision Summit 2017, a two-day event put together by the Unity team in beautiful Hollywood, California, revealed a few new features coming to the Unity platform. They also previewed some of the beta features that are currently available for those less scared of the occasional hiccup.
It's no secret that Samsung had a lot of bad press this year. Despite this, we've reported how, even with the massive negativity in the media, Samsung has been expected to have an excellent Q1. Not only have those expectations been confirmed today, but Samsung has announced they are also working on a new flagship smartphone. One that some say could be the Note 8.
I was a slap-happy T-Mobile customer before, but now, after hearing that the company sent out a box of rolling papers to certain media sites with memes bad mouthing #VerHIGHzon ... I love you even more, John Legere!
Well, we have some potentially good news for those wanting to experience Magic Leap. The ultra-secretive company seems to be planning a big year in 2017.
When the "Just another day in the office at Magic Leap" video was released last year, it was called a mind-blowing, stunning, and breathtaking take on mixed reality gaming. It was a great presentation of what the technology could be, but not for a second did I think it was anything other than a concept video, and I'm not the only one who thought that. This was a goal to reach for mixed reality, not the reality.
Calling all popcorn fanatics: we know a bit of drizzled butter is all that's needed to make a delicious bowl of your favorite finger food, but we've got some interesting mash-ups of flavors that we think you should try the next time you veg out on your couch for another Netflix marathon.
Google's new Pixel phones are shaking things up in the world of Android, as the Nexus line is no more, and the Mountain View tech giant has now become a smartphone OEM. The long-term impact of these moves remains to be seen, but we already know that Google, the manufacturer, will be adding extra software and UI features to the version of Android that ships with its Pixels.
Google's new cross-platform video chat app, Duo, is finally making its debut today, following a long waiting period that began in late May. The app was heavily teased during the keynote speech at Google I/O, but was not made available for download until now, so any early hype Google managed to whip up has died down quite a bit.
We are huge BLT sandwich fans. We are also huge sushi fans. After a morning spent heatedly debating which of the two we would like for lunch, we ultimately decided that we wanted both.
When you wear a holographic computer on your face, you gain some things and lose others. That's certainly the case when using Skype in Microsoft's HoloLens. Some video chats will work better because your caller can see what you see, rather than your face—but others just feel weird.
Samsung has been on a tear with its flagship devices since the release of the Galaxy S6; The S6 edge, the Note 5, and this year's Galaxy S7 models have all been met with universal acclaim, and even the staunchest of critics have almost nothing negative to say. Almost.
Hello again, and welcome back to another tutorial on functions, this time, covering recursion. What Is Recursion?
Tahini: it sounds like the name of a high-end fashion designer... or perhaps a variation on a two-piece swimsuit. But this "weird ingredient" is actually a delicious and nutritious paste made from toasted sesame seeds and oil.
Roughly four years ago, Adobe decided to abandon development of the mobile version of their popular Flash Player browser plugin. Their excuse at the time was that this move would enable them to focus more on HTML5 development for mobile devices and allow them to put more effort into maintaining the fluidity and security of their desktop Flash plugin.
If you ever need to spice up a party, drinking games can really get things started quickly. The objectives are generally to complete tasks or challenges, but it's really all a thinly-veiled excuse for increasing everyone's alcohol intake in a hurry while testing levels of inebriation.
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.
