Despite its rocky start, the Essential PH-1 has a lot going for it. Not only does it get consistent security patches and system updates hours after the Pixels, but like the Google-developed lineup, it's also great for rooting. Not only is your warranty not void with rooting, but the process is pretty straightforward.
Developed by Open Whisper Systems, Signal is a free, open-source encrypted communications app for both mobile and desktop devices that allows users to make voice calls, send instant messages, and even make video calls securely. However, a vulnerability was recently discovered for the desktop version that can be turned into a USB Rubber Ducky payload to steal signal messages with a single click.
Thanks to ever more powerful smartphones — the iPhone X with its advanced A11 processor and the Galaxy Note 8 powered by Snapdragon's 835 come to mind — the mobile industry is fast closing in on consoles and PCs with regards to gaming. Game developers have been aware of this fact, and have ported many games once dedicated to computers onto our handheld devices.
Cruise Automation, the driverless car startup General Motors (GM) bought for $1 billion in 2016, is readying a formidable fleet of robo-taxis for rollout in cities throughout the US. But when it comes to details about how the company plans to realize these lofty goals, it's been fairly tight-lipped.
Because of Android's new SafetyNet system, certain apps can now block rooted users or prevent you from accessing them altogether — but at least for now, there are still ways around these restrictions.
While the world is only recently becoming aware of its existence, augmented reality has been around in some form or another since the '90s. In the last decade, with the advancement and miniaturization of computer technology — specifically smartphones and tablets — AR has become far more viable as a usable tool and even more so as a form of entertainment. And these are the people behind mobile AR to keep an eye on.
If you live with pets, you know where their tongue has been, yet you let them kiss and lick you all they want without even thinking twice about it. I've heard people say that a dog's mouth is very clean, and that their saliva, delivered by licking, can help heal wounds, but is that really true?
Whether you're riding the subway on your way home from work, or stuck in the backseat of the car on a long road trip, there are times when you need to entertain yourself without a mobile data connection. A good mobile game would pass the time perfectly, but not every game works without an internet connection.
The international, Exynos-powered Galaxy S7 and S7 edge have had a working root method ever since a few days after release. But the North American variants—those using Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 processor—have locked bootloaders, and have proven to be almost unrootable up until now.
Most of us lead busy, work-filled lives, often clocking in a 9-to-5 five days a week. And when that clock signifies the hour to leave, the last thing on anyone's mind is: "Time to go to the grocery store to pick up more fresh produce!" (Well, to be fair... maybe more people are psyched about this, but I know with certainty that I am not one of them.)
Today's smartphones and tablets offer a great way for children to learn through interactive sight, sound, and touch, but they can also provide hours of genuine fun. If you have a spare tablet laying around—or at least a nice, durable case—the only thing you need to get your child started in this world of fun and learning is a handful of good apps.
My years in the restaurant business have taught me many things. Some of those things are best left unsaid and other things require a PhD in vulgarity, but the one thing I learned that I keep coming back to night after night is that you do not have to spend a lot of money to drink excellent wine. This is especially true of champagne...I'm sorry, sparkling wines.
Two slices of whole-wheat toast with lots of butter. Two eggs, poached to a firm yet custardy texture. The yolks should absolutely not be hard-cooked and the whites should be tender, not rubbery. That's my idea of the perfect breakfast.
It has been a long while since I last came here to write an article. Graduate school keeps you busy. After I looked over what I had written previously, I decided that I should introduce another fun topic from cryptography. In this case, steganography.
Just because a problem is small or superficial doesn't mean it can't annoy the living crap out of you. Others may think you're overreacting, or even have the audacity to roll their eyes, but you're in your own personal hell.
In these lion dance video instruction clips, learn about the music of the Southern style Chinese New Year Lion Dance and how it influences and directs the ceremony. Listen to the cymbals and drums as the Buddha puts the lion through its paces, taunting him with his fan. Learn how the different instruments create emotional soundscapes related to the narrative of the lion dance. Get an in-depth look at Chinese lion dance drum music in this video series, a thousand years in the making.
Although the enterprise use cases for the Microsoft HoloLens 2 continue to impress, the arts community just can't stay away from the best augmented reality headset on the market.
We usually focus on augmented reality here, but when something important in VR happens, we highlight it as part of the overall immersive computing story.
The fight to wrest control of apps from Apple's revenue-focused grip just took a major turn in favor of Epic Games.
The beauty industry has increasingly relied on the powers of augmented reality to drive sales in recent years, and now that virtual "everything" is on trend due to the pandemic, yet another big player is entering the fray.
The ability to browse the web in coffee shops, libraries, airports, and practically anywhere else you can imagine is more than convenient, but convenience has risks. Using public Wi-Fi allows others to spy on you easily. Even your own internet service provider can see every website you've ever visited. Don't fall into the trap of protecting your identity, data, and devices after it's too late.
The modern remote workforce faces many challenges, but perhaps none is greater than organizing calls and syncing tasks. Many platforms are convoluted and difficult to manage. Team members get bogged down by administrative tasks instead of staying productive.
It looks as though the novel coronavirus and social distancing guidelines are here to stay for a while. So companies of all sizes and industries are scrambling to adapt to a new reality in which everything from morning meetings to large-scale presentations are done entirely online. It looks like this is going to be the new normal for the foreseeable future.
It is well documented that what you say and do online is tracked. Yes, private organizations do their best to protect your data from hackers, but those protections don't extend to themselves, advertisers, and law enforcement.
To share a song or album to family and friends, it's as easy as copying its link in the app and pasting that into a message. However, not everyone uses the same music streaming service, so a link to an Apple Music song won't do a Spotify, Tidal, Pandora, Deezer, or YouTube Music subscriber any good. If you're on an iPhone, though, there's an easy way to convert links from one service to another.
With more digital content than ever, the search feature on smart TVs is essential. But typing is such a terrible experience when you're forced to use voice dictation or peck around with the remote control. Thankfully, there's a better way.
People use browsers for all types of things, and in general, we trust a lot of personal information to them. That's why browsers are a perfect attack surface for a hacker, because the target may not even know they are infected and feed you all of the information you could want.
A modern iPhone is capable of running sophisticated, exquisitely-rendered games that rival titles on current-generation consoles. However, there is some value in classic video game titles, whether you grew up playing games on the Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System, and Sega Genesis or not.
Whether you're trying to become an influencer or just want to share better photos and videos, the best camera to start with is your smartphone. It is likely the only camera you always have on you and it's probably capable of excellent pictures and video capture. But with a little help, it could definitely be better.
Web application firewalls are one of the strongest defenses a web app has, but they can be vulnerable if the firewall version used is known to an attacker. Understanding which firewall a target is using can be the first step to a hacker discovering how to get past it — and what defenses are in place on a target. And the tools Wafw00f and Nmap make fingerprinting firewalls easy.
SMB (Server Message Block) is a protocol that allows resources on the same network to share files, browse the network, and print over the network. It was initially used on Windows, but Unix systems can use SMB through Samba. Today, we will be using a tool called Enum4linux to extract information from a target, as well as smbclient to connect to an SMB share and transfer files.
In our comparison of the best gaming phones in 2019, the winner actually surprised us. A phone that most people don't know about from a brand you probably haven't heard of ended up as the clear winner. But how? Well, it ticked so many flagship boxes despite its midrange price tag.
Phishing is the easiest way to get your password stolen, as it only takes one mistake to log in to the wrong website. A convincing phishing site is key to a successful attempt, and tools to create them have become intuitive and more sophisticated. SocialFish allows a hacker to create a persuasive phishing page for nearly any website, offering a web interface with an Android app for remote control.
Since the Razer Phone's announcement in 2017, we've seen a new subgroup of phones emerge. Gaming phones are now a thing, leading to companies like ASUS creating phones that are thoroughly optimized for the mobile gaming experience. And with their second iteration, they perfected it.
For those with small hands, smartphones have gotten out of control as of late. Nearly every flagship phone is over six inches in length, so many are forced to use phones that are too big for them and hope they don't fall. Well, thanks to one developer, using these phones can be a lot easier.
When I first found out about Nreal, back in the spring of 2018, the most interesting thing about the company's story was the founder's background. Chi Xu, the CEO and founder of Nreal, previously worked at Magic Leap as a software engineer.
There's no doubt iOS 13 has dominated the talk around the Apple community this month. Since the announcement and release of the first developer beta, we iPhone users have had a treasure trove of new features and changes to explore and discuss. Now the fun continues with iOS 13 dev beta 2. Who's ready to start up the conversation all over again?
An incredible amount of devices use Bluetooth or Bluetooth Low Energy to communicate. These devices rarely have their radios switched off, and in some cases, are deliberately used as trackers for lost items. While Bluetooth devices support MAC address randomization, many manufacturers do not use it, allowing us to use tools like Bettercap to scan for and track Bluetooth devices.
Next to Apple, Snap is currently one of the most important companies on the planet in terms of delivering products that are moving augmented reality into the mainstream. That's why it's no surprise that Facebook, which is also focused on AR and tried to acquire the company for $3 billion several years ago, duplicates many of the smaller company's features.
If you record yourself for a vlog or story post using your selfie camera, it can be challenging to stay on message. You might worry too much about the way you look or sound to focus on what you want to say. Using a script can help, but looking away from the camera to read is unprofessional, even on social platforms like Instagram. What you need is a teleprompter, and there are apps for that.
