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.
The response to the COVID-19 pandemic means that social distancing has become the new normal. It also means that more Americans are using video conferencing to connect with colleagues working from home or friends and family in quarantine because of the new coronavirus.
Google has recently been pushing to replace the decades-old messaging technology we've been stuck with. SMS was never meant to handle the high-quality multimedia content we consume with our smartphones today, so in comes RCS, which is a universal platform that aims to change our messaging game forever.
Location-based gaming pioneer Niantic has been preparing its flavor of AR cloud, the Niantic Real World Platform, to bring more realistic and interactive augmented reality experiences to mobile apps. And now the company is looking for a few good developers to help execute its vision on the platform.
On Tuesday, Blue Vision Labs, one of three Google-backed companies working on AR Cloud platforms, announced its acquisition by ride-sharing company Lyft.
Computer vision company Blippar has already dabbled with outdoor AR navigation, but now it wants to make it easier for people to make their way through indoor spaces with augmented reality.
Smartphones are still "phones," which means communicating with others is usually a primary use. Ranging from a simple "hi" to a more personal conversation and even sharing passwords, our messages should remain private so that only the intended recipient sees their content. While many apps tout end-to-end encryption, not all apps prioritize security and privacy.
Leading tier-one supplier Continental has confirmed it will sell driverless platforms developed from BMW, Mobileye, and Intel's previously announced alliance, giving the company a potential edge over competitors by widening the range of technologies it offers directly to OEMs.
During his opening address on April 18 at F8, Facebook's developer conference, CEO Mark Zuckerberg launched the company's augmented reality platform centered on artificial intelligence-powered cameras.
The latest update to iOS 10 brought with it a number of great new features. Of these, the one that will likely have the most impact on people's iOS experience in the long term are the new apps and stickers for iMessage.
WhatsApp is one of the most well-known and most utilized cross-platform chat applications available today. It's free for one year, and only $0.99 a year after, which is chump change when you realize there are no hidden costs like international charges. Basically, it creates an easy to use forum for you and your friends to chat, regardless if they're an Android or iPhone user.
Coming soon to an Android device near you: Diminished Reality! What's Diminished Reality? A lot like Augmented Reality, really, but with one big difference: Where AR giveth, insinuating virtual elements into a live representation of the real world, Diminished Reality taketh away, hiding actually-existing objects within a live feed.
WhatsApp has a new sticker-making tool in the iPhone app that lets you create custom stickers directly in chats using your own images, eliminating the need to rely on third-party apps to make them.
Augmented reality gaming pioneer and Pokémon GO mastermind Niantic is putting the pieces on the gameboard to prepare developers and gamers for the launch of its AR cloud platform.
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.
After one of Britain's "Brothers Bling" bought Blippar out of bankruptcy, the mobile augmented reality company is getting back to business with the addition of web-based AR capabilities to its platform.
Canary tokens are customizable tracking links useful for learning about who is clicking on a link and where it's being shared. Thanks to the way many apps fetch a URL preview for links shared in private chats, canary tokens can even phone home when someone checks a private chat without clicking the link. Canary tokens come in several useful types and can be used even through URL shorteners.
Google and Apple are working to enable augmented reality content for the web, but startup 8th Wall has managed to launch a web AR platform that works on mobile browsers now.
A new set of APIs for Unity promise to make it easier for developers to publish apps that support both ARKit and ARCore.
Another AR cloud candidate has emerged in YOUAR, a startup that has developed a new system that enables persistent augmented reality experiences on iPhones and Android devices.
Location services provider Mapbox is giving developers a means for building location-based AR apps and multi-user experiences with its new Mapbox AR toolkit.
While it's a more secure platform for messages and calls, Signal's job isn't to prevent unknown users from contacting you, so you run into the same issues you would with a regular phone number. People you know that you don't want to talk to may try to strike up a conversation and you'll still get spam messages. Luckily, it's easy to block these suckers.
We've heard a bit about Google Daydream—the new smartphone-based virtual reality platform that is supposed to provide a markedly better experience than Cardboard—but don't really know what it'll look like. Engadget claims we could find out in just a couple of weeks, since Android Nougat is already out, a necessary component of Daydream.
Facebook just released its new "home on Android" last Friday, appropriately called Facebook Home. Taking a cue from Amazon's Kindle, Home serves as an "operating system" that runs over Android.
This is a very cool trick. In this video, you will learn how to make a platform and set up for a cool bar game/trick. Once you have built the platform, you are ready to challenge your friends to this crazy mind game.
In this video, we learn how to add live chat to your website. First, go to the website Meebo and log into your account. Now, you will see the interface and the accounts you have associated with this client. There are several chat engines you can use through this interface. Once you have added all your chat clients, you can participate in the chats that occur on your website just from this one website. In order to add this widget to your website, go to preferences and choose the option for wid...
In this tutorial, we learn how to integrate Facebook chat with iChat. To do this, go into your Facebook account and copy your profile name. Now, go into your iChat account and click on "preferences". Next, click on the "add" button and select "jabber" from the drop down menu. Now, add your account name with "@chat.facebook.com" and type in your Facebook password the same as you would do so in Facebook. Under server options, enter "chat.facebook.com" and the port will be 5212. Now your Faceboo...
New to the Mac OS X platform? If you've just switched platforms, you'll want some help accimating to your new operating system. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to use the OS X dock as well as how to use and manipulate windows in Mac OS X. For more on getting to know the Mac OS X operating system, take a look!
The team over at Spatial isn't done innovating its way through augmented reality in 2020. Just days after adding a mobile option to its groundbreaking Spatial virtual collaboration product, the company is releasing Tele, a new app geared toward more casual, AR-powered video chats.
There's not much to the Messages app for iPhone when it comes to finding the right conversations. It did get some enhanced search capabilities in iOS 13, but beyond that, there's no good way to find the threads you need aside from just scrolling through the main page, which lists newer ones first. However, there is a tweak that gives you the power to group like-minded chats together.
The "Zoombombing" trend is still strong on the Zoom video meetings service, despite security measures Zoom put in place to stop it. That's why it's up to you, as either a host or co-host, to be proactive about preventing Zoombomber harassment, as well as stopping it whenever it slips through the cracks.
The business world is currently figuring out how to deal with the coronavirus crisis, with many offices opting to work remotely for at least the next few weeks as a safety precaution. Predictably, this has thrown remote meeting software back into the spotlight, especially augmented reality solutions.
Silicon Valley-based startup 8th Wall has spent much of the last few years building a reputation for enabling AR experiences that are platform agnostic via web browsers and mobile apps. Now, 8th Wall is promising to give developers the freedom to build and host AR experiences from anywhere via a simple web browser.
You usually reply to emails on your own ... unless it's related to your work. You may want input from coworkers or higher-ups, and while forwarding works, Spark offers an easier way to discuss important emails with others. Using Spark for Teams, you can easily share an email with your team and discuss it privately.
Roughly six months after emerging from stealth, AR cloud company 6D.ai is now ready for public consumption, and it has a big name partner to help it kick off its platform.
While Magic Leap has remained mostly silent regarding its plans for its Magic Leap One successor, the software team continues to makes strides with improvements to the device's Lumin OS and SDK.
Apple has several ways for you to communicate in the Messages app aside from texting — and that includes audio messages. You can send a voice recording via iMessage by long-pressing the microphone icon just right of the input field and speaking. However, by default, these audio messages self-destruct after two minutes, which isn't good if you want them archived.
Not content to merely assist surgeons via the HoloLens, Medivis has expanded its augmented reality suite to Magic Leap One with an app for medical students.
Over the past year, two trends have emerged among augmented reality development software: make it easier to create AR content, and give AR apps better environmental understanding with just a smartphone camera.
With Pokémon GO as its cash cow and the forthcoming Harry Potter: Wizards Unite and Niantic Real World Platform promising future revenue streams, Niantic has convinced investors to bet on its flavor of augmented reality
