Most Android devices allow you to simply replace a ZIP file in your /system/media folder if you want to change your boot animation. Unfortunately, though, this isn't the case for the Galaxy S5, as it's been buried deep in Samsung's TouchWiz skin.
This past year, Facebook spent $19 billion purchasing the popular messaging app WhatsApp, and for good reason. Mark Zuckerberg isn't going to spend that type of money on just any application. WhatsApp is widely popular and frequently used by more than 500 million users worldwide, which is almost twenty percent of the Earth's population.
I've been using the Photo Sphere Camera from Google on all of my Android devices ever since it came out on Jelly Bean 4.2, which lets me create riveting 360° panoramic images.
The world of root is upon us, folks. While the LG G3 has be available for purchase for a couple of months now, rooting had been a shaky subject. International and T-Mobile variants enjoyed root from day one, while various security patches left the AT&T and Verizon Wireless variants as a mixed bag, and Sprint completely out in the cold.
These days, most of the hardware components in smartphones evolve at a breakneck pace. Batteries gain capacity while decreasing in size, displays continue to get sharper as graphics rendering steadily improves, and processors clock higher speeds at every generation.
A security analyst has discovered a flaw in Chromecast's initial setup process that allows would-be hackers to assume full control over the online streaming device.
Just what are probiotics and why are they so good for you? Probiotics are "viable microorganisms" that can confer lots and lots of health benefits if they reach your intestine while they're alive. You may have heard them described as "friendly bacteria."
Android has had predictive text for a while now, both with stock and third-party keyboards such as Fleksy, SwiftKey, TouchPal, et al. Apple is even getting on board, with stock predictive text and third-party keyboards for iOS 8, slated for public release later this year.
You may not have noticed it, but Google snuck a new feature into Glass recently. Called Notification Glance, this feature lets you view new notifications by simply looking up at the screen.
Welcome back, my novice hackers! It has become clear from some of your questions that quite a few of you are unfamiliar with the hexadecimal system, or simply, hex. The hexadecimal system is used throughout computing and if you have never studied this Base16 numering system, it may appear relatively opaque.
While AT&T and Verizon may not have had a chance to screw Note 2 owners with unrootbale devices—mainly because they've screwed us over by not issuing KitKat updates—it's safe to say that they can in the future. And while Sprint and T-Mobile subscribers have been able to root, the various methods can make the process somewhat confusing, especially for first-timers.
Fast moving cars, strangers in the background, and even birds flying by can all ruin a great shot. Thankfully, TouchWiz provides the tools to remove unwanted objects, right in the stock camera application.
Google's new camera, aptly named Google Camera, has been all the rage since it was released onto Google Play last Friday. The main reason is the amazing Lens Blur feature that adds depth-of-field Lytro effects to photos, without the use of any expensive accessories or extra hardware, like on the new HTC One M8. The camera does this by utilizing a depth map through the processing of multiple images. Frame your photo, move the camera (phone) in an upward tilt or motion, and the software capture...
As Nexus owners, we love our device's operating system, and it's probably the reason we went for a pure Google experience in the first place. But that doesn't mean there's not room for improvement in Android, especially when the OS has so many freely available softMods to tinker with.
You've probably used Google to search for recipes, or to find out what the heck that mystery food on the ingredients list is. But with all its built-in features, there are plenty of other ways the search engine can help you out in the kitchen.
Applying for jobs can be a truly miserable experience. Sending out endless résumés, filling out those janky online applications, and creating cover letters can really wear a person down. So, any suggestions that make that process easier are always welcome.
Modern smartphones can easily handle anything you throw at them, but it's always good to keep a tight grasp of what your phone is actually doing and how well it's doing it. System information can be viewed by looking through your Application Manager, but this process makes it difficult to keep an eye on usage in real time.
Thanks to the popularity of casual gaming on smartphones, handheld gaming consoles like Sony's PlayStation Vita have been on the decline. But if you own a new PlayStation 4, the Vita is a nice thing to have, since you can easily connect it to your PS4 for Remote Play.
Why can't Thanksgiving be a celebration of fireworks, too? This year, it can be with an innocent looking pumpkin pie that erupts an insane fountain of flames and fire! In fact, the pie filling is actually a flammable mixture of sugar and potassium nitrate, which was made using the same process as my DIY smoke flares with fuses.
I've never been a huge fan of the traditional roasted turkey at Thanksgiving. Different parts of the bird finish cooking at different times, so by the time the legs are cooked through, the breast meat is totally dry. If you don't want to go the deep-frying route, how can you still end up with a moist and delicious turkey?
I learned the hard way that boxed dyes just don't work well for me. A few months ago, I tried one that had a pretty name like "soft violet black." Sounds nice, right? What I ended up with was brown hair and hot pink roots. Trust me, it wasn't cute.
There are some things that are just plain difficult to do for those of us with small hands. I started playing the piano when I was a little kid, and I learned the hard way that there were some chords that were just out of my reach.
Having your phone ring loudly in a quiet environment could be potentially embarrassing for you, but also quite annoying for everyone else that didn't forget to put their smartphone on silent. Whether it's in class, at work during a meeting, at the library, or a movie screening—you can bet that someone's phone is going to ring loudly, pissing some people off. You don't really want to be that douchebag that interrupts a movie or the middle of a lecture with their annoying ringtone just because ...
With the Google Play store on your Android device, it's a relatively easy process to check all of your application updates. All you have to do is launch the Market app, go to the My Apps section, and from there you'll be able to see all of the available updates for your applications, which should be positioned at the top of the list. The problem with this process is that many times, you'll go days or weeks and quite possibly even months without checking the Google Play application market, lea...
We've all had that awful, sinking feeling when something you've been typing away at is suddenly gone. Maybe you accidentally hit the Back button, lost your internet connection, or your computer crashed, but whatever the reason, losing your work totally sucks. A lot of word processing programs have a built-in auto-save feature to prevent you from losing everything, but most websites and blogs haven't gotten there yet. An extension for Chrome and Firefox called Lazarus: Form Recovery can help y...
Tons of freezers have built-in ice dispensers, but a lot of people never use them. But it turns out, all it takes to give it a new purpose is some duct tape, an X-Acto knife, and a piece of foam core.
We go to such great lengths to secure our smartphones. We put passwords on our lock screens, encrypt our data, and install anti-theft programs, but it's never enough—someone, somewhere, will find a way around any protective measure you use, no matter how sophisticated.
Ever wonder what your brain looks like while you're singing? No? Neither had I, but as this music video for the song "Better Man Than He" by SiVU (aka James Page) will show you, the answer is "pretty cool."
The Jelly Bean update brought a lot of cool features to the Samsung Galaxy S3, but one nasty bug remained. Something was causing "Android System" usage to be consistently high. Of course, the percentage of this process that is used is dependent on what you're doing at any given time, but it shouldn't be anywhere near this level with "standard" use (calls, texts, emails, light browsing, etc.).
As a kid, I was always interested in what was beyond our world. I remember lying down on the top of my dad's car and watching the stars for hour, gleefully excited whenever a shooting star streaked across the night sky.
Whether it's because you have no access to the internet or because you're simply on vacation, having someone else check your emails may be a possibility. You can give them your password and screen name, but that's never a good thing. Giving out your password to anyone, even someone you trust, is not something that I would ever suggest for two reasons:
With the use of Terminal, anyone can run multiple instances of the same application on a Mac. When you have multiple windows open in a web browser, the windows are all running under the same Process ID (PID). But, with multiple instances, each has its own unique PID. So why would you want to run multiple instances of the same app? There are several reasons a person may run clones of the same application, but the most popular would be so that the user could multitask. Some applications, like t...
I think part of the reason why I don’t eat more vegetables or fruits is because there's always a process—a simple one, but a process nonetheless. Having to wash my fruits and veggies is just flat out annoying. I just want to eat them, not take a shower with them.
There are plenty of ways to create time-lapse photos and videos, but most of them are taken over the course of several hours. If you want to do a longer term shoot over several weeks or months, you'll need a battery that can last that long, and you probably don't want to leave your DSLR sitting somewhere for that amount of time anyway.
Greeting cards. Everyone hates buying them, they're way overpriced, and the majority of them go right in the trash after they're opened. So why do we still buy them?
One of the most annoying things about the holiday season is that it's almost impossible to make it through without at least one ornament falling off the tree and shattering. Even if you give the cat its own "special room" for the whole month, something is bound to happen. Rather than throwing out broken ornaments, Steve Hoefer figured out a way to turn them into new ones using plain, clear glass ornaments and Modge Podge craft glue. And personally, I'd say the results look way better than the...
You can create a lot of impressive effects by stacking or layering photos, whether you do it in a darkroom or with Photoshop. The Harris shutter effect makes your photos super colorful, and double exposing or stacking negatives makes for some crazy looking portraits.
By default, your Samsung Galaxy S III comes equipped with a few app shortcuts that are available from the lock screen. But what if you don't use those apps very much? Wouldn't you rather customize the lock screen icons on your S3 to your favorite and most used apps?
Fluorescent dye can be a great addition for decorating around the house for Halloween, especially for a haunted one. Creating your own fluorescent dye is a simple experiment, as long as you've got the proper chemicals and safety gear. Nurd Rage details the chemical process of creating your own fluorescein below.
Rooting your device gives you all-powerful administrative access to your phone and its system settings. Of course, with such power comes great responsibility, and sometimes that responsibility becomes to burdensome or just plain unnecessary.
