News: How Viruses Might Cause Brain Changes & Learning Problems
Despite mounting scientific evidence that viruses can cause changes in learning and memory, the reasons have remained elusive.
D I Y Routes Search Results
News: No Matter Where You Are, You Can Request an Uber for Someone Else
Admit it — many of us have not gotten in the Uber's we've requested. Sometimes, you just need to get someone else a cab that you're not going to be going with. No biggie ... but your friend doesn't have any connection to Uber or the driver, which can be a little awkward. Uber is addressing this slight issue today, with an update that allows you to officially request Ubers for others.
PSA: Don't Update Your Pixel if You're Rooted or Have Custom Recovery Installed
The May 2017 security update has begun rolling out to Nexus and Pixel devices, which is usually great news. It means that your device is now being updated to protect you from the latest exploits and vulnerabilities found in Android. At other times, though, security updates patch root methods like Dirty COW, which is extremely frustrating for users and developers alike. Especially since most OEMs don't condone rooting or even unlocking the bootloader on their devices.
How To: Test Drive 'Death Road to Canada' for Free on Your iPhone Before Purchasing
The popular RPG Death Road to Canada has finally arrived for the iPhone and iPad, and its impact is immediate. It's fast becoming a top contender for mobile video game of 2017, and it's very easy to see why. The game blends decision making and good old zombie bashing to create a refreshingly unique experience. Add to that the motley cast of survivors that you can recruit, plus the secrets waiting to be discovered, and this game is sure to suck up countless hours of your time.
News: 'Hackers-for-Hire' Attempted to Steal Baidu's Self-Driving Car Secrets
Baidu Inc, the "Chinese Google" search engine and technology company, which has been actively pursuing self-driving cars, reported that a gang of hackers recently attempted to steal its driverless car technology.
Video: Automate a Camera's Path with the HoloLens and VroomCam
Every day the young world of mixed reality is creating new ways for people to work with with computers. We are looking for, and finding, new ways for these head-worn computers to understand what we tell them. Sometimes it is with our hands, sometimes it is where we turn our head, sometimes it is what we say. In the case highlighted below, it's where we walk.
How To: Easily Transfer Contacts, Photos & Calendars from iOS to Android with Google Drive
Google Drive has a very simple way to switch from iOS to Android. iPhone users who want to take the plunge into the wonderful world of Android, but were hesitant to do so in the past because of the laborious process of backing up their data, can back up their contacts, photos, videos, and calendars with the tap of a button.
How To: Turn on Google Pixel's Wi-Fi Assistant to Get Secure Access on Open Networks
The Pixel and Pixel XL come with an awesome data-saving feature called Wi-Fi Assistant that automatically connects to open internet hotspots, then creates a secure VPN on your device to keep your data safe.
News: Good News AR Devs—Research Shows People Learn Better in 3D
If you've ever built a piece of IKEA furniture, you're familiar with the confusion that some 2D instruction booklets can create. But neuroscience suggests that they're cognitively overloading, as our brains have to translate their basic flatness into physical reality and that's pretty hard to do. Fortunately, augmented reality has come to the rescue.
How To: Make a Foolproof Meringue with This Easy Tip
When it comes to a perfect summertime dessert, lemon meringue pie is the ideal contender with its rich lemon filling and light-as-air meringue topping. In my humble opinion, the meringue is the true star of the dessert, instantly elevating what is simply a lemon pie to something more elegant and certainly more decadent.
News: Ford Is Adding Android Auto, Apple CarPlay, & More with New Sync System
You've probably heard the old joke about how Ford is an acronym for "Found on Road Dead." Well, the Detroit automaker on Monday announced a new and much better way to help you find your parked vehicle, as well as a whole host of other features—just use your smartphone.
How To: Set Rotating Lock Screen Wallpapers on Samsung Galaxy Devices
Say what you want about Samsung's TouchWiz UI being cluttered or overbearing, but one thing you can never complain about is a lack of features. In fact, it's been almost 8 months since I first took my Galaxy S6 Edge out of its box, but I'm still discovering features to this day.
Android Basics: How to Connect to a Wi-Fi Network
If you're just starting out with Android—or smartphones in general, for that matter—there are a lot of little things to learn. One of the first terms you'll likely encounter is "Wi-Fi," which is a wireless internet connection served up by a router in your home, office, or local coffee shop. This differs from your smartphone's regular "Mobile Data" connection, which is provided by your cellular carrier and included as part of your monthly bill.
How To: Networking Basics for the Aspiring Hacker
Hi there, nullbytes! I've been recently using NullByte as my only source of learning (almost) and it has proven to be really good to me.
How To: Use These Restaurant Secrets to Reduce the Pungency of Raw Onions
We've all been there: you're staring at a fantastic-looking salad or sandwich full of your favorite ingredients. You take a bite, and you taste only one thing—raw onion. A glass of water, a toothbrush, and an hour later, and your breath still tastes like only one thing—raw onion.
How To: Make iPhone Navigation Prompts Play Over Your Car Speakers When Listening to the Radio
Maps is great for making sure you always get to your destination, until you miss that critical turn because you couldn't hear the turn-by-turn directions.
How To: Enable Stereo Sound on Your Nexus 5
At $349 off contract, the Nexus 5 has always been one of the best bang-for-your-buck smartphones on the market. In order to keep the price that low, however, Google had to pass up on some of the minor features that other flagship phones offer.
How To: Enable True Stereo Sound on Your Galaxy S5
With all of the top-notch specs that the Galaxy S5 sports, the only minor quibble users have had with its hardware is the speaker situation. A front-facing earpiece is used for phone calls, but all other media is restricted to a single rear-firing speaker.
How To: This Innocent Calculator Is Really a Secret App Safe for Android
Trust can be a touchy subject in general, and is often required when sharing personal information—especially so when handing our phones over to others. You may not have a ton of secret or nefarious information on your device, but that doesn't mean you want your mom or snoopy coworker having easy access to your messages or Facebook app.
How To: DIY Pedal-Powered Phone Charger for Your Bike
Being healthy and active will help you live longer, but finding the strength to work out? That's hard. What does it do for me right now? I mean, here I sit, writing this article, thinking about going for a run, and I feel good just for thinking about running. But will I do it? Nah, I'm too lazy.
How To: Downgrade Apps on Your Galaxy Note 3 or Other Android Device
Normally, it's good to automatically update your apps to the latest version, but sometimes those updates take away features that you've grown to love.
How To: Get CyanogenMod Apps on Your Galaxy S4 Without Root
CyanogenMod is one of, if not the most popular, third-party operating system for Android devices. It's so popular in fact, that it is the standard, out-of-the-box operating system on the recently released OnePlus One. CM is a lightweight ROM built on top of AOSP (Android Open Source Project), which is the base for all Android builds.
How to Turn Milk Solid: A Devilishly Frustrating Breakfast Prank for April Fool's Day
I've already shown you an easy last-minute prank involving toothpaste-filled Oreos, now here's a great joke involving an integral part of the cookie-eating experience—milk.
News: Leaked Images of the Samsung Galaxy S5 Show Updated User Interface
Mobile World Congress is just around the corner, and if patterns stay consistent, Samsung will be unveiling their newest member of the Galaxy line, the Galaxy S5.
How To: These Free Printable Masks Are About as Lazy as Halloween Costumes Can Get
You told yourself you wouldn't be one of those lame people who throws on a mask and shows up at costume parties, but here we are a day before Halloween and you still have nothing. Unless you want to endure endless ridicule, you can't skip dressing up altogether, but if you don't want to buy a pre-made costume your options are pretty limited.
How To: Use Traffic Analysis to Defeat TOR
As was mentioned by the great OTW last week, TOR, aka The Onion Router, has had its integrity attacked by the NSA. In an attempt to reduce the anonymity granted by the service, the NSA has opened a great many nodes of their own. The purpose is presumably to trace the origin of a communication by compromising some entrance and exit nodes. Once both are compromised, it is much easier to correlate traffic with a particular individual.
How To: Optimize & Speed Up Web Surfing on Your Nexus 7 Tablet with This Super Easy Mod
Even if you have the fastest internet connection in the world, it's not going to be fast if your Android device isn't optimized to use all of the bandwidth. I have pretty fast speeds at home, but every now and then my web surfing on my Nexus 7 tablet is halted in its tracks—for seemingly no reason.
How To: Save Battery Life & Never Get Lost Again with Offline Maps & Directions on Your Samsung Galaxy S3
When you have to take four different freeways to go twelve miles, Google Maps becomes a very close and dear friend—especially in Los Angeles. Without my trusty Samsung Galaxy S3, I seriously don't know if I could make it back home half of the time. Of course, you'd probably get better directions using a Garmin, TomTom, or other GPS device, but when you already have a smartphone like the GS3, dedicated GPS units become nothing more than a luxury item.
How To: Make a Fake, Pirate-Worthy Gold Bar on the Cheap
I loved the Gold Rush unit back in third grade. We went up to the American River and panned for gold, and my panning skills balled above all. I got like three tiny pellets. Of course, it was all fool's gold, aka pyrite, but it was still pretty legit. And this was before wearing gold chains was cool—or not.
How To: Gain Mass XP Using the Black Hat PDA in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
Creating a class in Black Ops 2 is kind of like an art form. Every player has an insane amount of options for creating a character for all sorts of situations. Combining perks, with secondary weapons, and attachments allows for a wide range of killing options. But in order to unlock a lot of these perks and attachments, you need to gain XP. Gaining XP and collecting tokens is the lifeblood of the online gaming experience.
How To: Adjust Your Samsung Galaxy Note's S-Pen Sensitivity for Better Touch Response
Touchscreens are all the rage these days, and it seems that the stylus has become a relic of the past thanks to newer and better fingertip responsive smartphone displays. But when it comes to phablets like Samsung's Galaxy Note line, the added S-Pen is definitely helpful for more accurate and precise actions (and a less greasy screen). Of course, there are disadvantages of using an S-Pen too, one being hardware issues. Unlike your finger, the S-Pen can malfunction and become a huge problem, n...
How To: Make Your Own Soda Pop at Home with a DIY Carbonation Kit
Even if you're not a hipster with your own self-sufficient garden, making your own edibles at home can be pretty cool. And while it's obviously easier to pick up a bottle of 7-Up at the store, there's something undoubtedly fun about making your own. For those addicted to their fizzy drinks, DIY soda is a great way to save some cash and make their drinks healthier with natural flavors and sweeteners, instead of something like corn syrup or aspartame.
How To: If You Use Password Hints in Windows 7 or 8, This Hack Could Easily Exploit Them
Earlier this week, Spiderlabs' vulnerability researcher Jonathan Claudius discovered a key in Windows 7 and 8 registries that makes it easy for anyone with physical or remote access to a computer get a hold of the user's password hints. When the "UserPasswordHint" key is read, the hints are displayed as a code that looks encrypted, but Claudius noticed a pattern of zeroes that could be easily translated back to plain text with a decoder he made in Ruby. He added this functionality to the Meta...
YouTube Pro Tip: How to Automatically Blur All Faces in Your YouTube Videos
There's a strange grey area for "guerrilla filmmaking" on YouTube. Generally, someone shooting a video needs to get permission from the people in it to show their faces. But on YouTube, that "rule" is more of a suggestion (and sometimes not even that).
News: Car Completes World's Largest 360° Loop-the-Loop
This past spring, British TV show Fifth Gear aired stuntman Steve Truglia performing a Hot Wheels inspired feat. The daredevil completed the world's largest 360° loop-the-loop. Death was a definite risk.
How To: Big Brother's Watching You (HowTo Un-Google Yourself)
Some think of Google as the ultimate Big Brother, and with good reason. If you use Google (and most of us do), Google potentially has your email history, your complete search history, your travel routes, your interests, and more. Maybe they've even snapped a picture of you out in the real world (via Google Street View).
News: Hack hard drives into working speakers
Old Hard Drive + MP3 player = Music This equation just doesn't make sense. If you're an iPod addict, the HD element is redundant! Well, take a second look at what constitutes a speaker and what a hard drive is made of. They are more alike than you'd think.
How To: Make a bale of pine straw
This video shows how to make a bale of pine straw using a one-man-baler, aka, a box baler. The two strings are pre-cut to around 90", having a 'eye' tied on one end. The 'eye' is slipped over the rod at top of baler and routed inside the baler and back out through the long slots in the baler door. It helps to stand on the two strings, keeping them taut while loading the initial handful of straw. As you push the straw down into the box, the strings will then be correctly positioned at the bott...
How To: A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Internet: A Brief History of How the Net Came to Be
You walk over to your laptop, wiggle your mouse to wake up the screen, then fire up your browser to come visit Null Byte. Catching the article about Anonymous and how they presumably will not take down the Internet, you find yourself wondering... how would someone take down the Internet? Could they even do it?
How To: 8 Big Apple Maps Features iOS 14.5 Brings to Your iPhone
If you rely on Apple Maps to get around over other navigation apps, there's a lot you can do. Look Around lets you tour cities up close, restaurant reservations make dining less frustrating, and 3D view gives a new perspective of a neighborhood. While there are many more where that came from, iOS 14.5 just added six new features and changes you need to know about.