Not content to let NFL's official pizza sponsor corner the market for feeding football fans, 7-Eleven has taken a page out of Pizza Hut's playbook with a promotional augmented reality game.
Space Ape has soft-launched Go Race: Super Karts, giving you a fresh take on mobile racing games by blending in elements found within the classic Mario Kart series and RPGs for some seriously addicting gameplay. And while it's only available in Australia, Netherlands, and Philippines, there's a workaround to get this game on your iPhone right now, no matter where you are.
Starting November 1, 2018, Google will require that all new apps and updates to existing apps target Android 8.0 Oreo or higher. This move means the developers behind many of your favorite apps are now scrambling to get their software modernized, while others are considering abandoning outdated apps altogether.
After parting ways with Papa John's, the National Football League has drafted Pizza Hut as its official pizza purveyor, and the company has hit the field with an augmented reality game to entertain hungry football fans.
A new app for iPhones and iPads gives developers a sandbox for testing their AR experiences and sharing them with the world.
With iOS 12, Apple is offering users more options than ever to create, store, and manage their saved passwords. Not only can iOS 12 make you new passwords via the AutoFill feature, you can quickly and efficiently access your entire iCloud Keychain using Siri. Why go hunting for the passwords yourself when you can ask your iOS assistant to find them for you?
Front and center for iOS 12 this year is Group FaceTime, which allows users to chat with up to 31 additional people at once. While that ambitious feature is sadly delayed, don't cast away FaceTime just yet — you can always pick up your iPhone and start a call with any single contact directly from the Messages app.
With the arrival of iOS 12, Do Not Disturb has received long-overdue enhancements to make the feature more user-friendly. Among these changes is a subtle but incredibly convenient feature that helps ensure you remain undisturbed for short periods of time to more focus on your task at hand — without having to worry about turning it off manually or messing with complicated settings.
Included with iOS 12 is an easier-to-use Do Not Disturb mode. Not only is there a new Bedtime Mode that makes waking up less annoying, but also new ways to quickly launch the DND temporarily. One example is having the ability to set Do Not Disturb based on a time of day — specifically, morning or evening.
One of the new iOS 12 features for iPhones is an enhanced version of Do Not Disturb mode. Instead of being limited to times you manually input, Apple added new ways to manage the feature, including activating it based on location. For those on the go, this can be done pretty quickly.
It's a sad day for one of the most beloved series of Android phones. For the first time since 2009, there's a new version of Android, but it's not being made available to Google's own Nexus devices.
If you have an Apple Watch, you might know that the activity awards you earn can be shared with your friends as iMessage stickers on your iPhone. However, you first have to earn achievements in order to use them as stickers. That changes somewhat with iOS 12, as Apple added animated activity stickers for all Apple Watch users, whether they've earned award badges or not.
One gem that Apple added with iOS 12 is the perfect companion for the dictionary that's already available with the "Look Up" tool. I say gem because it's taken a backseat to all of the other new iOS 12 features, but it shouldn't, because a thesaurus is like the phloem to a dictionary's xylem, making it hard to believe that Apple didn't include this synonym finder from the start.
Ever since iOS 8, Apple's quick reply feature had made it easy to respond to messages without leaving the lock screen or whatever app you're currently in, but you can't utilize all of Messages features when responding this way. You can't add photos, use iMessage apps, record audio, choose effects, or send handwritten messages. You also couldn't use Tapback, but iOS 12 just changed this.
One of the best features in the Apple News app is the ability to save stories for later. If you see an interesting or important article but don't have time to read it right away, there's a good chance you'll never find it again unless you save it. Ever since News' birth in iOS 9, accessing these bookmarked stories was as easy as going to the "Saved" tab, but that's no longer the case in iOS 12.
If you're on iOS 11.4.1 or iOS 12 and go more than an hour without unlocking your iPhone, an "Unlock iPhone to Use Accessories" message will appear whenever you connect your iPhone to a computer or other device that tries to use the Lightning cable's data lines. This is to protect you, but it can be annoying if you have no reason to believe that law enforcement or criminals will have access to your iPhone.
Two-factor authentication (2FA) is a great way to add another layer of security to sensitive third-party apps and websites like Venmo. However, before iOS 12, to log into a particular 2FA-secured app or site on your iPhone, you'd have to memorize or copy the SMS code from Messages, then jump back in a timely manner to log in. Apple's latest iOS version streamlines this process.
Apple's iOS assistant has an undeniably iconic voice — you know Siri when you hear her. As memorable a voice as it may be, you don't need to stick with her default American accent. In iOS 11, you can choose from two other vocal deliveries, and in iOS 12, there are two more accents at your disposal for a total of four more.
You've been able to install app updates automatically for some time now, but there was no way to install new system updates on your iPhone automatically. To get a new iOS version on your device, you'd go into the settings, then download the update. It would then either install right away or give you the option to install at nighttime. This whole process is easier in iOS 12.
Apple's notification system for iOS was in desperate need of a revision ever since they removed app grouping for new alerts. In iOS 12, they finally brought that back, new and improved, but Apple has also added more useful notifications features, such as Instant Tuning, which helps you quickly manage how notifications come in for each app — if you even want them to.
New York-based startup CTRL-Labs has closed a $28 million Series A round of funding from Google parent Alphabet's GV and Amazon's Alexa Fund, among others, for its next-generation neural interface technology for AR/VR and robotics.
As Facebook, Apple, Samsung, and others offer augmented reality selfie effects and content that challenge its platform, Snapchat has continued to innovate with its augmented reality capabilities.
Uber is one of the best ride sharing services out there, allowing you to travel without needing to be tethered to a car of your own. Still, if you're a frequent flyer, you may get tired of entering the same few locations into your app every time you use it. Fortunately, Uber lets you streamline this process.
If you are an active player of Pokémon GO, you may soon be capturing more than just virtual pocket monsters.
During Snap Inc.'s quarterly earnings report, released on Tuesday, the company disclosed that it snagged a revenue total of $230.8 million for the first quarter of 2018, an increase of 54% compared to last year, largely fueled by its augmented reality offerings and other advertising products.
Your best chance of getting to a destination on time during rush hour is to drive through relatively empty HOV lanes. Thankfully, if you're using Waze to navigate through traffic, you can easily locate HOV or HOT routes to optimize travel times by adding your toll passes in the app's settings.
Just weeks after being acquired by comedian turned producer Byron Allen for $300 million, The Weather Channel has tapped augmented reality studio The Future Group to integrate immersive augmented reality experiences into its broadcast content.
Going out to dinner on a Saturday night can be more trouble than it's worth when you find yourself waiting for hours on end just to be seated. Thankfully, Google Maps has some very useful data that can save you from a headache the next time you head out to your favorite restaurant.
Hearthstone, Blizzard's online card game, combines strategy with a fun spin on the World of Warcraft lore to create a unique experience. With the latest expansion (The Witchwood) on the horizon, you'll want to make sure your collection is ready for when the set drops in April. Fortunately, you can get free packs on iPhone or Android to help prepare.
The new Android 9.0 Pie update is bringing a feature that stock Android has been lacking — screenshot editing. OEM skins like Samsung's TouchWiz have had this for years, and Apple added it to iOS just recently. But now that it's in stock Android, it'll be included with every phone going forward — trouble is, most people will have to wait for the update. Thankfully, you can get this feature right now on any phone.
When you visit a website in Safari, it's most likely keeping tabs on your browsing activity. It could be keeping track directly, or its third-party content providers and advertisers can be spying on you. All three could happen simultaneously. This enables them to serve you content that's tailor-made for you, but it can also feel like an invasion of privacy.
Famed musician and composer Brian Eno is giving the air guitar and drumming crowd the means to make music from their gesturing through the Microsoft HoloLens.
San Francisco-based 6D.ai is preparing to launch a beta of its AR cloud platform that's capable of constructing a real-time dense mesh from crowdsourced data for use in 3D mapping and multi-user AR experiences.
New emojis are coming with the Android Oreo update for Galaxy S8 and S8+. Samsung Experience 9.0 has been updated to Emoji 5.0, adding 239 brand new emojis when you take into account gender and skin tone variants. While there are minor changes across the board, we wanted to focus on the newly created emojis so you'll know what's available to you.
After closing its 2017 financial books on a high note, Snap, Inc. is planning to ride the momentum of its augmented reality products into the new year. That's the main takeaway following the company's 2017 earnings conference call, which was held on Tuesday.
Well, that was annoying. Earlier today, iOS users — including myself — were getting plagued with the same CNN news alert over and over again. While the news itself is significant (the guy who sent that false missile alert in Hawaii was fired), people usually get the gist after just one alert, not dozens.
Although it sounds like a foodie's take on Facebook, what Calabasas, California-based FaceCake actually offers is more about augmented reality fashion marketing rather than food selfies.
Apple released the third developer beta for iOS 11.2.5 on Wednesday, Jan. 3, and public beta testers got in on the action the following day. The update comes two full weeks after the release of the second beta, marking an extended update period of Apple. The second beta mostly brought under the hood improvements to 11.2.5.
Most of the animated characters and animals we've seen in augmented reality are still fairly basic in terms of visual fidelity. And because many are still impressed by simply seeing 3D figures properly scaled and tracked alongside real-world objects, this approach has worked ... so far.
With the raw, visceral feeling of zooming around on the open road, it's easy to get carried away when you're out for a ride on your chopper, super bike, or scooter. This increases your chances of getting lost, plus routes can differ slightly for motorcyclists and cagers, unbeknownst to most drivers. Luckily, Waze has rolled out a feature that caters specifically to bikers.
