The Force was awakened in many a household on Christmas morning this year, as evidenced by numerous recipients of newly unwrapped Star Wars: Jedi Challenges systems sharing their first lightsaber battles in augmented reality on social media.
So far, iOS 13's major point updates have all been pretty exciting for iPhone. We've seen iOS 13.1, 13.2, and 13.3 come and go, offering more than 60 new features and changes combined to that very first version of iOS 13. While iOS 13.3.1 was a minor update, its successor, iOS 13.4, is a return to form.
The rise and fall of Meta, the Silicon Valley-based augmented reality startup that looked to challenge the likes of Microsoft's HoloLens, and others, took just six years.
When it comes to iOS beta updates, developers get their updates first, and once they do, public testers play the waiting game. Sometimes Apple releases the public version three hours later. Other times it waits 24 hours. It's a roll of the dice almost every time. As for iOS 13.4 public beta 2, it's the latter case, coming exactly one after developer beta 2.
Last week, Apple released the first iOS 13.4 beta with fun and useful new features, such as new Memoji, an upgrade Mail toolbar, and the ability to control your NFC-compatible car via CarKey. To add to that, Apple just released iOS 13.4 developer beta 2, but does the update have any more new changes to be excited about?
If you have a taste for sweets, you have at least one thing in common with mosquitoes. While too much sugar is unhealthy for humans, a new product makes sweets deadly to mosquitoes.
So cute, so furry, and so chock full of parasites. While raccoons are fun to watch, they are neither friendly nor clean — and they can make you sick in more ways than one.
The next time you suffer a cut or abrasion, think twice before you reach for the Neosporin. It's time, and mom, tested — you get a cut, you wash it carefully, then apply some triple-threat antimicrobial ointment. You may or may not slap on a band-aid. We won't cover it here, but so that you know, covering the wound with a sterile dressing or band-aid is a good idea.
If you have encountered bed bugs lately, you are not alone. While the pesticides used to fight these pests are losing effectiveness, a fungus shows promise in knocking the bugs out of beds everywhere.
After closing its office last year, enterprise AR company Daqri has moved on to the final stage of its lifecycle with the liquidation of its assets.
Ready to try and sew-in your own weave? It's a big decision. As with everything that concerns our hair, we struggle with the pros and cons and often dwell on what could go wrong. Pixie cut. Perm or not? New shade (of pink, purple, or blue). These are all major decisions because ... well, it's our hair, and hair is such a big part of our style. To get a weave or not calls for careful consideration, and to sew one in yourself, that's an even bigger internal debate.
The week in AR business news started out with a bang with two bombshell reports that cast a shadow on the AR industry as a whole.
The saga of augmented reality startup Meta appeared to be at end, but there are new developments unfolding in real time that may either sink Meta deeper into trouble, or provide a tenuous lifeline for the beleaguered augmented reality company.
Apple first announced Business Chat, a new way for customers to communicate with companies, at WWDC 2017. While Business Chat did not arrive with the initial release of iOS 11, Apple pushed it out in iOS 11.3 so companies can offer customer service in a whole new way, and it works pretty much the same in iOS 12 and higher as it did back then.
Welcome back, my rookie hackers! As most of you know, Mr. Robot is probably the best hacker TV show ever! This is a great show about a cyber security engineer who is being enticed to hack the very corporation he's being paid to protect. This show is so good, I began a series to demonstrate how to do the hacks he uses in the show.
American economy is based on credit in the form of credit cards, loans and debt management. Learn about credit and credit cards from a credit counselor in this free personal finance video series.
The COVID-19 pandemic has practically shut down all sports except for World Wrestling Entertainment, which has continued staging matches without an audience, leaving us sports fans with nothing much to cheer for. While they can't replace live games, smartphone games provide an alternate reality to live out our competitive entertainment in the absence of the real thing.
When filtered through the prism of the top stories of the year, the business of augmented reality 2019 was defined as much by epic failures of AR startups as it was by the promising developments that propelled the industry forward into 2020.
The last time we heard from Meta, the makers of the Meta 2 augmented reality headset, things looked pretty bleak. Now, as several new facts have come to light, we have confirmation regarding the beleaguered company's fate: Meta is done.
The world finally received its first official look at the iPhone XR, XS, and XS Max, Apple's 2018 suite of smartphones, on Wednesday, Sept. 12. If you're someone looking to get their hands on one, two, or three of these new iPhones as soon as possible, you'll need to know all of the important dates so you don't end up missing out to others ahead of the line.
Up until the last 15 years or so, watching the commercials during the Super Bowl was arguably more exciting than the game itself. Super Bowl XXIV featured the San Francisco 49ers blowing out the Broncos, 55-10, in the worst Super Bowl beatdown of all time. The game might not have been that exciting, but the commercials sure were.
Welcome back, my nascent hackers! In the conclusion of the Mr. Robot television series, Elliot and fsociety successfully completed their mission of encrypting all of Evil Corp's data with AES-128 encryption and destroying the key.
In less than a month, WWDC, Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, will reveal the company's plans for the upcoming iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 software updates. But we already know what accessibility features will be hitting iPhones and iPads later this year, and many of them will be helpful to everyone, not just users with accessibility issues.
Starting Sept. 13, you can preorder the iPhone 11, 11 Pro, or 11 Pro Max from Apple, wireless carriers, and various e-commerce websites. However, unlike with Android smartphones, there is only one set of iOS phones that come out each year, so they're pretty hot items. That means being the first to get your hands on one could be a challenge, but we're here to help you out.
The new iPhone X will be released on Friday, Nov. 3, in Apple Stores located in over 55 countries and territories. For those of you who would rather skip the in-stores lines that will start building well before the 8 a.m. local time openings, you can preorder the iPhone X on Friday, Oct. 27, starting at 12:01 a.m. PDT.
The first written account of "stock" as a culinary staple goes back to 1653, when La Varenne's Cookery described boiling mushroom stems and table scraps with other ingredients (such as herbs and basic vegetables) in water to use for sauces. But really, the concept of stock has probably been around for as long as people have been using water to boil food.
Phones these days are expensive. The iPhone 11 Pro is presumed to start at $999, following the iPhone XS and iPhone X's leads. One way to bring down that cost is to trade in your old iPhone, but there isn't one clear-cut way to do that. You could trade your iPhone into a participating website or put yourself out there and sell the iPhone on your own. It's all about what's best for you.
Equifax reported on Sept. 7 that it discovered a breach on July 29 which affects roughly half of Americans, many of whom don't realize they have dealings with the company. Hackers got away with social security numbers, addresses, and driver's license numbers, foreshadowing a "nuclear explosion of identity theft." Let's explore what really happened and what you and those around you can do to protect yourselves.
I don't know how many of you had this experience in your youth, but when I was a kid, I used to actively think about what would happen if I suddenly woke up in a fantasy land, or were to pass through a portal into another space and time. I knew it wouldn't really happen, but when you're a kid, these can be important issues to you. So I slept with my glasses on every night, just in case. Photo from George Pal's The Time Machine.
The economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have been felt in practically every business sector. Now, as we look back at the top augmented reality investments of 2020, the AR industry has been no exception.
Apple Card has generated quite the buzz since its March 2019 announcement. The iPhone maker's new credit card pairs with Apple Wallet on your device, is simple to sign up for, includes enhanced security over other cards, has zero fees, and provides daily rewards right to your Apple Cash account. And as good as that sounds, the fine print can complicate things real quick.
On the surface, AppleCare+ seems like an expensive and gimmicky option to tack onto your already pricey iPhone 11, 11 Pro, or 11 Pro Max. Upon further inspection, however, you'll see that its seemingly expensive price tag is chump change compared to the fees you'll have to pay if you end up having to repair your premium device outside its one-year warranty.
Contrary to popular belief, augmented reality apps have been available for a while now. I remember using the Layar app (still available for iOS and Android) to explore nearby businesses and landmarks with varying success via an early-generation Android handset.
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.
Over the years, we've seen security breach after security breach, as well as high-profile data scandals where collected personal information was misused by companies. Apple makes customer privacy a priority, so there have been few issues to worry about when it comes to its services on your iPhone. However, there are still plenty of privacy settings to explore and change, especially within Safari.
The two-hook panfish rig is meant for vertical fishing under the boat in fairly deep water, for deep-dwelling fish like crappie, catfish, bluegills, and sometimes even bass. It involves two hooks hanging off the line, off droppers, to fish close to the bottom. Watch and learn as Wade Bourne of MyOutdoorTV shows you how to fish a two-hook panfish rig.
If you want to learn a little bit about fishing, Wade Bourne of MyOutdoorTV is the perfect fisherman to learn from. In this video tutorial, Wade shows you the steps to fishing a live bait rig. Watch, learn, then try this live bait rig action on your next trip out on the lake.
When it comes to both simplicity and efficiency, the bottom bouncer rig is one of the best fishing rigs you can use. It's great for crappie fishing, along with catfish, white bass, black bass, and other panfish and bottom-dwelling sportfish. Wade Bourne of MyOutdoorTV shows you how to fish a bottom bouncer rig.
If you fancy yourself a nomad, check out Walking House, a mobile and modular dwelling system that is pneumatically powered, all-terrain ready. The vehicle-home crawls along at a snail's pace of 60 meters per hour, which equates to less than 1/2 a mile per hour. Akin in concept to the rolling house-on-the-go (except in the way cooler insect-like robot form), Walking House also boasts some cool eco-friendly features:
The slip sinker is used with the slip sinker rig to troll bait slowly across the bottom, primarily for walleye fishing, but also it will catch catfish and other bottom-dwelling species. If you want to find out how to rig the slip sinker rig, watch and learn from Wade Bourne of MyOutdoorTV.