How To: Use Google's New AI Chatbot Bard to Generate Text-Based Content on Anything
Generative artificial intelligence has taken the tech world by storm, and Google's AI chatbot will give you a taste of what it offers.
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How To: Get iPhone's Dynamic Island on Your Android Phone for Quick Access to Notifications, Alerts, and Activities
Apple's Dynamic Island is an animated, interactive isle surrounding the front-facing camera on the iPhone 14 Pro series. It's a small capsule when nothing is going on but fluidly stretches across the screen for notifications, alerts, and ongoing activities like music, timers, and directions. It can even expand with controls and more information. And now, you can get Dynamic Island on your Android phone.
How To: Your iPhone's Contacts App Just Got Its Biggest Update Ever
Apple's Contacts app just got its biggest update ever. Since the first iPhone in 2008, there have only been minor upgrades here and there to how you manage and interact with contacts. That changes with iOS 16.
How To: Remember These Popular App Store Games? They're Still Alive to Play Today
The App Store has been around for almost 14 years now, and during that time, we must have seen over a million games come and go and stay and expand. But only a tiny fraction of those games have become blockbuster sensations because of the mighty App Store's reach on iPhone and iPad, and many of the first big hits are still alive today for you to relive the good ol' days of mobile gaming.
How To: The Simplest Way to Remove the Background from Photos on iOS, iPadOS, and Android
It's super easy to add filters, adjust levels, and crop images using the default photo editor on your smartphone, but there's rarely any built-in tool for removing the background in a photo. A third-party app can help isolate people and objects in your pictures, and we've found a free one that's easy to use, works with high-resolution images, and is available for Android, iOS, iPadOS, and the web.
How To: Use These Price Trackers to Find On-Sale and Newly Free Apps for Your iPhone or iPad
To the end user, mobile apps are sometimes expensive. To the developers, those costs are justified for all the hard work put into making the apps. Sometimes app creators will meet in the middle by putting their apps on sale or giving them away for a limited time to gain more traction in the App Store.
How To: Blur Faces and Text in Videos with This Free, Easy-to-Use Video Editing App for iPhone
On an iPhone, it's easy to blur or cross out faces and sensitive information found in your images — just use Apple's Markup tool for all your obfuscation needs. Things aren't as simple when it comes to videos. There are no built-in iOS features to blur, redact, or otherwise obscure people, objects, and text in videos, but we've found a free solution that gets the job done well without any watermarks.
Market Reality: NASA AR Launches, Smartglasses Showdown, Vuzix Secret Lab, Magic Leap Turns the Corner
The beginning of autumn has delivered a number of new augmented reality developments, and we're on top of it.
How To: When It Comes to iPhone 12 Series Cases, Smartish Is All You'll Need
I drop my smartphone a lot. Like an absurd amount of times. Practically multiple times a day. So it's surprising that my iPhone 12 Pro has lasted nine months without a cracked screen yet. Part of that has to do with the late-2020 model's durability, and the other part is thanks to my protective case.
Market Reality: Facebook AR & Space Jam, Virgin Galactic AR App, Asics NFTs, & Shark Week on Snapchat
A pair of properties from the soon-to-merge Warner Media and Discovery companies chose different platforms for their augmented reality marketing, with Warner film Space Jam: A New Legacy opting to go with Facebook and Discovery Channel publishing an AR experience through Snapchat.
Market Reality: Apple & Samsung Partner with Snap, HoloLens 2 at the Museum, & Inside the Varjo Reality Cloud
While Snap may eventually compete with Apple and Samsung in selling smartglasses to consumers, today it is helping them achieve their business objectives via augmented reality.
Market Reality: Apple & Facebook Spill AR Details, Niantic's AR Transformers, Looking Glass Unboxed, & Snap's Viral Lens
The makers of arguably the two most important mobile AR apps, Niantic and Snap, both had good news this week, with the former preparing to replicate its success with Pokémon GO for another franchise and the latter notching another popular augmented reality Lens for Snapchat.
Opinion: Why the Nightmare Scenario of Facebook's Quest VR Advertisements Is Actually a Win, & Will Ultimately Boost AR
The recent announcement that Facebook will begin inserting advertisements into its VR experience on its Oculus Quest headset has set the VR and augmented reality industry into a frenzy.
Market Reality: Facebook Debuts Shared AR for Video Chat, Magic Leap Teams with AMD, & Lego Takes AR to the Theme Park
It's (virtual) developer conference season, and this week was Facebook's turn with F8 Refresh. Like Google and Snap, Facebook had some new AR capabilities to show off.
How To: This App Gives You Thousands of Free Custom Fonts for Your iPhone's Stock Keyboard
Since iOS 13, your iPhone's come equipped with a fonts manager that lets you install custom fonts for use in Apple apps and supported third-party apps. To add fonts, you need to use a font provider app that'll load them on your device and register them system-wide, and one of these apps shines above all else.
How To: Scroll Hands-Free Through Long Webpages on Your iPhone to Read Articles at the Perfect Pace
You can't always have your hands on your iPhone, which is why Apple developed Siri. When Siri can't do your hands-free bidding, there's Apple's newer Voice Control feature. But if you don't like barking commands at your iPhone, there's another option — at least, when it comes to scrolling through webpages in Safari.
Market Reality: Snap Spectacles Early Prototype, Volkswagen Drives into AR, Inside Lego Snapchat, & Instagram Updates AR
We're still basking in the afterglow of the HUGE Snap Partner Summit last week, where Snap made Snapchat a much stronger augmented reality platform while also unveiling the AR smartglasses version of Spectacles. This week, we got a peek at how Spectacles AR started and got our hands on Lenses from Lego and Disney featured during the keynote.
News: Apple's Second iOS 14.6 Release Candidate Available for iPhone Devs & Public Beta Testers
Apple released the second Release Candidate for iPhone on Friday, May 21. The new update, build number 18F72, comes four days after the company seeded the first 14.6 RC to developers and public testers, and two days after the first beta for iOS 14.7.
News: Apple Releases iOS 14.6 RC for iPhone, Adds Option to Unlock iPhone Using Voice Control
Apple pushed out the Release Candidate for iOS 14.6 on Monday, May 17. The 18F71 build includes new features and bug fixes, including an option to unlock your iPhone with Voice Control. It comes just hours after Apple announced Spacial Audio and Lossless Audio playback for Apple Music, new features that will require iOS 14.6 to run.
Market Reality: Microsoft's Consumer Smartglasses, Apple Invests in Corning & Niantic Launches Lightship Beta
Sure, Microsoft has mostly marketed its HoloLens headsets towards enterprises and developers, but we learned this week that, like every other tech giant, the company is working on a consumer-grade AR wearable. Speaking of consumer smartglasses, Apple made another strategic investment this week that has implications for Apple's AR future.
Market Reality: Apple Funds AR, Campfire Headset Plans Revealed, Marvel Adds AR to NBA, & Star Wars Day Snapchat Lenses
Apple has a sterling reputation when it comes to managing its supply chain; it's where CEO Tim Cook proved his mettle to succeed Steve Jobs. Now, the company has made a strategic investment with a supplier that will be crucial to its future plans for AR wearables.
Market Reality: Facebook Execs on AR Future, Amazon AR Beauty Salons, Samsung AR Launch & the Best Snapchat AR Lenses
As a company, Facebook is not shy about talking up its AR smartglasses plans. The latest missive comes from two executives in charge of developing AR software and hardware.
AR Snapshots: Live Out Your Sci-Fi Dreams with Iron Man Suits & Lightsabers in Snapchat
Snap introduced some fantastic new augmented reality abilities in version 3.4 of Lens Studio, the company's tool that allows anyone to create AR lenses for the Snapchat app. The newest features include improved hand tracking and full-body segmentation.
Market Reality: Apple AR Headset Event in the Works, Snap & Niantic Have Their Own Smartglasses Plans
The race for the future of AR wearables gained steam this week with several pivotal developments. First, Apple, the subject of numerous reports and rumors regarding its purported AR headset, is reportedly eyeing an in-person unveiling of the device for later this year, rather than introduce it at its upcoming virtual Worldwide Developers Conference, which would usually be as good a time as any to make a big AR hardware announcement.
How To: Why Your Lost AirPods Say 'Offline' or 'No Location Found' in the Find My App
If you lose your AirPods, AirPods Pro, or AirPods Max, you can turn to Find My to locate them. But sometimes, things don't go according to plan, and many things can go wrong. For example:
Market Reality: NFT & AR Converge with Atari, MF Doom & Virtual Homes, Plus Samsung Partners with Snapchat
Snapchat may trail Facebook and Instagram in terms of daily active users, but a new partnership with Samsung may get those innovative AR Lenses onto the mobile devices of a lot more users.
Market Reality: Reggie Watts & Looking Glass NFT Auction, Sketchfab Courts Google Poly Users & Apple Smartglass Rumors
The augmented reality industry has grown steadily over the past four years, but now it is on a collision course with uber-popular non-fungible tokens technology, with Looking Glass and music artist Reggie Watts among the latest to strike while the iron is hot.
How To: T-Mobile Is Automatically Selling Your Data to Advertisers — Here's How to Opt Out
It's getting harder and harder to escape ad tracking by the day. For the latest example, look no further than T-Mobile. The No. 2 carrier updated its privacy policy on Feb. 23, 2021, indicating that it would start sharing customer data with advertisers under the guise of more relevant ads starting April 26. If that's not something you'd like to participate in, there's a way to opt-out.
News: Cleanbox CEO Amy Hedrick Is Saving the AR & VR World One Headset at a Time Through Virus-Fighting Tech
The process of trying out new augmented reality and virtual reality hardware is as personal as it gets. Bottom line, if you can't directly try these immersive devices on, it's difficult to really understand the benefits they can bring to your life and work.
News: Apple Releases iOS 14.5 Public Beta 3 for iPhone, Adds New 'Items' Tab in Find My
Apple released the third public beta for iOS 14.5 today, Wednesday, Mar. 3. The update introduces a new "Items" tab in the Find My app that hints at the company's long-rumored "AirTags," a new Apple Watch icon when unlocking your Face ID iPhone with your watch, as well as small UI updates.
News: Apple Releases iOS 14.5 Developer Beta 3 for iPhone
Apple released the third developer beta for iOS 14.5 today, Tuesday, Mar. 2. The company promptly pulled the update from the developer portal, before finally making it available for all shortly after. The update was surprising to begin with, since Apple released it at an unusual time, and was only available as a download from the dev portal, without any OTA option.
Market Reality: Snap Attracts AR Storytellers, Samsung AR Dreams Revealed & Qualcomm + Nreal Unveil New AR Hardware
The Lens Studio creators have published more than 1.5 million AR effects to Snapchat. One of them is Audrey Spencer, who shared her story with us and provided her insights into Lens Studio as a storytelling device. Meanwhile, Snap has added new capabilities to the platform to stoke more creativity from its creators.
How To: Mute Your Mac's Microphone Automatically When Typing During Zoom Meeting Calls
You're in a Zoom meeting, and you're click-clacking away at your keyboard, typing important notes from the call. More realistically, you're doing something unrelated to the meeting, such as browsing the web, playing a game, or messaging friends. Whatever it is you're typing, if your microphone is on, everyone on the Zoom call will be able to hear the sound of you typing.
Market Reality: Microsoft Intros HoloLens 2 Variant, Canon Sets High Price for AR Headset & Apple AR Rumors Re-Emerge
If there is one constant in currently available AR headsets, it's that, for a quality experience, they'll carry a high price tag. Price is one of the reasons these devices are mostly marketed towards enterprise customers for now.
News: Apple Releases iOS 14.5 Public Beta 1 for iPhone, Adds Support for Xbox Series X & PS5 DualSense Controllers
Apple released the first public beta for iOS 14.5 on Thursday, Feb. 4. This update is proving to be the most significant in some time, offering new features and changes like support for PS5 DualSense and Xbox Series X controllers, the ability to unlock your iPhone using your Apple Watch, AirPlay 2 support for Fitness+, Reminders sorting and printing options, 5G support when using dual-SIM, and more.
News: Apple Releases First iOS 14.5 Developer Beta for iPhone, Adds Support for Xbox Series X & PS5 DualSense Controllers
Apple released iOS 14.5 developer beta 1, and the update sports a list of interesting features and changes. Some of those include support for the Xbox Series X and PS5 DualSense controllers, the ability to unlock your iPhone with Apple Watch, AirPlay 2 support for Fitness+, 5G support for dual-SIM setups, and a refreshed Software Update page in Settings.
How To: Create a USB Mouse Jiggler to Keep a Target Computer from Falling Asleep (& Prank Friends Too)
While obvious, it's a lot more difficult to hack into a locked computer than an unlocked computer. As a white-hat hacker, pentester, cybersecurity specialist, or someone working in digital forensics, there's an easy solution — make it so that the computer won't fall asleep and lock automatically in the first place.
News: Apple's iOS 14.4 Release Candidate Out for iPhone, Includes Camera, Bluetooth & Privacy Updates
Apple has finally seeded the release candidate for iOS 14.4 to iPhone developers and public beta users, build 18D52. The update adds scanning support for smaller QR codes in Camera, the ability to classify Bluetooth devices to improve audio notifications, and alerts on the iPhone 12, 12 mini, 12 Pro, or 12 Pro Max for if the camera is detected not to be genuine. There's also a short list of bug fixes.
How To: Quickly Generate Anonymous, Throwaway Email Addresses on Your iPhone to Keep Your Real Email Accounts Safe from Spam
A temporary email can go a long way. Using your actual email to sign up for a mailing list to receive 10% off a purchase doesn't make sense if you don't use the website much. It means you'll have to deal with spam emails from then on, which is why an anonymous email is perfect not to have to deal with all that trouble. And that's where the TempMail shortcut for your iPhone comes in handy.
News: iOS 14.4 Public Beta Available for iPhone with More App Clip Experiences, Tracking Requests & New Modem Firmware
The iOS 14.4 developer beta was pushed out a day ago, and now the iOS 14.4 public beta is out and ready for your iPhone. At first glance, there's not much to look at in the new beta release, and it's not yet known if it lays out the groundwork for missing features such as 5G data with dual SIMs, shared third-party app subscriptions, and Xbox Core Controller.