How To: The Quick and Dirty Beginner's Guide to Steampunk Leatherworking, Part One
This two-part series (second part here) will teach you literally everything you need to know in order to make pretty much anything out of leather.
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How To: So, You're a Steampunk… Now What?
Let's say that you've got the look down, and you have your Steampunk props all ready to go. Congratulations! You're a Steampunk!
Steamdown: How I Made My Liquid-Cooled Steampunk Rifle Prop
I know, "Steamdown" conjures images of a hoedown, but "Steampunk prop breakdown" is a bit of a mouthful, I thought.
Bat Science: How Realistic Are Batman's Gadgets in Dark Knight Rises?
One of the best things about Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy is how realistic he makes the caped crusader feel. Unlike the Joel Schumacher or even the Tim Burton versions, Nolan's world seems grounded in some level of scientific fact. But just how close is science to actually being able to replicate some of the Dark Knight's gadgetry?
How To: Prepare boudin sausage Cajun recipe
In this Cajun cooking class on video, learn how to make boudin sausage. Our expert chef and caterer, Karl James, will walk you through the process step-by-step, including what ingredients and equipment you will need. Although this is a complicated recipe that takes some practice to perfect, Karl makes it easy as he shows you how to chop and cook vegetables, season and prepare the meat, how to cook rice, how to assemble your meat grinder and sausage stuffer, how to soak the casings and fit the...
How To: Dominate the New York Times Crossword Puzzle
First off, don't be frustrated. YOU CAN DO IT! Contrary to the message in the image above, it's NOT over. It's just beginning. And when it comes to solving the New York Times crossword puzzle, the old cliche does apply: practice makes perfect.
How To: iOS 18 Lets You Change Widget Sizes on Your iPhone's Home Screen Without Deleting Them First
Apple just made it easier to change a widget's size on your iPhone's Home Screen, so you no longer have to delete widgets and add different-sized versions of them. With iOS 18, you can adjust a widget's size straight from its current widget size on your Home Screen. The new method also works on iPad with iPadOS 18.
How To: Customize and Use Control Center on Your iPhone for Quick Access to Your Most-Used Apps, Features, and Settings
If you're not using Control Center on your iPhone, you're missing out on a powerful tool that can streamline how you interact with your device, make certain tasks more efficient, and give you quick access to system tools, switches, and sliders for quick changes no matter where you are or what app you're in.
How To: Update Your iPhone's Lock Screen with an Attention-Grabbing Note, Reminder, Warning, or Other Custom Message
There's a lot you can customize on your iPhone's Lock Screen — wallpapers and photos, widgets, the display mode, notifications, and even the time's font and color. But there's another feature that lets you add custom text for whatever you want, whether it's an inspiring quote, a reminder, a warning to anyone who dares touch your iPhone, or even just your name.
How To: Instantly Crop Photos and Videos on Your iPhone Using iOS 17's Hidden Quick-Cropping Tool
Cropping images and videos on your iPhone has always been kind of clunky in the Photos app, but Apple just made the process better with the iOS 17 update. And it also works for iPad on iPadOS 17.
How To: Force Apps to Use Android's Transparent System Navigation Bar if They Don't Already Support It
One aspect of Android's interface that remains clunky is its gesture- or button-based navigation bar, mainly because app developers aren't fully utilizing the tools available to them. But a new feature Google is working on may finally make your nav bar more uniform across your apps.
How To: Magically Add All the Right Emoji to Your Messages with Emojify, Gboard's New Emoji Generator
Emoji characters make messaging more fun, and Google has continuously added convenient and fun ways to insert playful symbols into your conversations using Gboard. After getting Emoji Kitchen in early 2020, we now have Emojify, a tool that automatically adds emoji to your message drafts.
How To: Shazam Songs with Blazing Fast Speed Straight from Android's Quick Settings Panel
While you can use Google Assistant on your Android phone to identify songs playing around you, you may still prefer Shazam's music recognition service, which has been available on Android since 2008 — a full nine years before Google Assistant's audio-fingerprinting technology. If that's the case, it's even easier now to Shazam songs in seconds, no matter what screen you're on.
News: What Is the Difference Between Facebook Ray-Ban Stories, Snap Spectacles, & Amazon Echo Frames Smartglasses?
The emergence of Facebook's collaboration with Ray-Ban to launch Stories smartglasses has finally put an exclamation point on a new category of smartglasses: the pre-augmented reality wearable segment.
Market Reality: The Matrix vs. The Metaverse, Xiaomi AR Wearable, & Snap Art AR History
This was a busy week in the tech space. After everyone got over the major announcements of Apple's latest, we examined the metaverse through the lens of Hollywood, and then took a closer look at Facebook's first smartglasses.
News: How 'The Matrix Resurrections' Can Help Us Answer Some of the Most Important Questions About the Emerging Real Metaverse
"Unfortunately, no one can be told what the matrix is, you have to see it for yourself." That's the line just before Morpheus gives Thomas Anderson (aka Neo) the red pill, finally opening his eyes to the tapestry of code that has veiled his eyes for his entire life.
Market Reality: Snap & Epic Games Acquisitions, Nreal v. Epic Games, AR on Oculus Quest, & HoloLens at the Olympics
It's already been a banner year for mergers and acquisitions in the augmented reality industry, with WaveOptics and Ubiquity6 among the notable companies acquired. Two of the more active M&A players, Snap and Epic Games, continued their respective buying sprees this week with major deals supporting their AR strategies.
News: Snap Releases Lens Studio 4.0 with 3D Body Mesh & More, Upgrades Scan as Fashion Assistant
Throughout Thursday's virtual Snap Partner Summit, Snapchat's parent company made a profound statement: If you use Snapchat, you're a creator.
News: Bernie Sanders Presidential Inauguration Freezing Moment Spawns Meme-Worthy Snapchat Lens
The world of politics can sometimes get a little toxic, but with the new administration, there's already a bit of whimsy creeping back into the online meme space.
How To: Pair a PlayStation 4 DualShock Controller to Your Chromecast with Google TV
While Google Stadia currently needs to be sideloaded on Chromecast with Google TV, there are a handful of games that are compatible with the streaming device and require a gamepad. But you don't need to buy a specific controller just for your Chromecast, you can use one you already have lying around.
How To: Create Photo Collages Using Instagram's Story Camera — No Layout App Needed
For the longest time, Instagram didn't have a native collage feature. If you wanted to post a story with an assortment of photos, you'd need to use the company's Layout app or a third-party collage maker. Thankfully, that is no longer the case since Instagram now bakes Layout directly into the story camera.
How To: 6 Ways to Try Google's Next-Gen AR Experience on Android Right Now
While Apple and Samsung have started integrating depth sensors into the iPad Pro and Galaxy smartphones, more advanced AR experiences are arriving for standard smartphone cameras on Android devices.
How To: Make the Perfect Finsta That No One Will Ever Find
Everything you post on social media lives there forever — even if you delete it. Just ask anyone that's ever posted something stupid. Instagram does not provide built-in tools to save or download images and videos from other users, but there are workarounds. Third-party tools make saving other people's photos and videos easy, and there are always screenshots.
How To: 16 Best Games to Fill the Sports Void in Your Life
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.
How To: Get Your 'Animal Crossing - New Horizons' Photos on Your Phone
We might not be able to hang out with friends in-person during a mandatory lockdown or self-quarantine, but we sure can in "Animal Crossing: New Horizons." Snapping pictures with the new NookPhone feels almost as personal as taking selfies in real life, so, naturally, we want those memories to live on our real phones as well. In pure Nintendo form, however, it's not easy.
News: 10 Remote Collaboration Apps for HoloLens, Magic Leap, & Mobile That Can Substitute for in-Person Meetings
For enterprise augmented reality platform makers, remote assistance apps represent one of the greatest opportunities to show off the power of immersive computing. These apps enable experts to guide front-line workers or customers with AR prompts and other content in the field of view of their smartphones or smartglasses.
News: This Is Why All Augmented Reality Startups Suck
People fundamentally distrust magicians. And they should. The illusions they proffer are just that, illusions meant to astound rather than tangible interactions and results that have weight and meaning in our real world. Our lizard brains know this, and, no matter what the outstanding feat of "magic" presented, we nevertheless hold fast to our survival-based grip on the truth: we just saw simply "can't be real."
News: 10 Best Apps for Improving & Maintaining Your Mental Health
If you made a resolution for 2020 to get healthier, it's essential to concentrate on your mental health just as much as you do on physical fitness. Running and exercising is great, but a sound mind is integral to a healthy and balanced life, and you can improve your emotional and physiological well-being with your smartphone.
News: Apple Watch vs. Fitbit — What's the Best Bang for Your Buck?
In the case of Apple Watch v. Fitbit, the winner comes down to the judge at hand. Apple currently offers two smartwatches — the Series 5 and the Series 3 — while Fitbit offers three models — the Fitbit Versa 2, Fitbit Ionic, and Fitbit Versa Lite. Whatever your assumptions about these devices are, throw them out the window, as each has something unique to bring to the table.
Gift Guide: Must-Have Phone Accessories for Music Lovers & Audiophiles
With MP3 players all but dead, phones are now the dominant portable music devices. While smartphones have gotten better at this task over the years, they do have some glaring limitations when it comes to music. On the bright side, we can use these limitations to help find the perfect gifts for the audiophiles in our lives.
How To: 16 Ways to Destroy the Competition in Call of Duty Mobile
So you've been playing Call of Duty Mobile for some time but can't seem to get MVP at the end of the battle. Well, since the game is a competition of players and bots, you're in an uphill battle. But you don't have to languish at the bottom. With the help of these tips, you might just nab your first MVP.
News: Startup Human Capable's 'Norm Glasses' AR Smartglasses Are Like Google Glass in a Regular Pair of Shades
What if, back in 2013, Google Glass had launched not as a Star Trek Borg-like eyepiece, but as a pair of seemingly normal shades, with the augmented reality lens and camera hidden within the frame?
ASUS ROG Phone II: The Gaming Phone for Everyone
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.
How To: Add, Customize & Animate Text Layers in Your Videos with Enlight Videoleap for iPhone
Typography is an important aspect of the video editing process. You deal with it when adding captions to news clips, giving on-screen recipes in food videos, creating burned-in subtitles for short films, making no-sound-needed videos for social media, and so much more. Enlight Videoleap for iOS makes this all easy.
How To: Scan, Fake & Attack Wi-Fi Networks with the ESP8266-Based WiFi Deauther
The price of hacking Wi-Fi has fallen dramatically, and low-cost microcontrollers are increasingly being turned into cheap yet powerful hacking tools. One of the most popular is the ESP8266, an Arduino-programmable chip on which the Wi-Fi Deauther project is based. On this inexpensive board, a hacker can create fake networks, clone real ones, or disable all Wi-Fi in an area from a slick web interface.
How To: Inconspicuously Sniff Wi-Fi Data Packets Using an ESP8266
If you want to get started sniffing Wi-Fi networks, you usually need to start with a wireless network adapter. But thanks to a Wi-Fi sniffing library written in Arduino and the ultra-cheap ESP8266 chip, you might not need one. For less than $10 in electronics, you can build a tiny Arduino Wi-Fi sniffer that saves Wireshark-compatible PCAP files and fits anywhere.
News: What Is Augmented Reality?
Apple CEO Tim Cook has said that augmented reality (or, AR for short) will "change everything." But what, exactly, is augmented reality?
How To: The 5 Best Free Twitter Clients for Android
In a way, Twitter is the town square of our era, where people can share and discuss ideas on a wide variety of topics. While the tech giant has its own app for Android, it's pretty bare-bones when it comes to features. This has paved the way for third-party clients that are rich with customization options.
How To: Cheat Your Apple Watch Rings
Apple Watch owners know the struggle — it's the end of the day, and those rings aren't met. Whether you forgot your watch before hitting the gym, let the battery run out, or just didn't move enough, you could feel the sting of fitness failure. But it doesn't have to be this way. You can actually close your Activity rings yourself; it just takes a little know-how.
Gift Guide: Must-Have Phone Accessories for Photographers
With smartphone cameras and software getting better and better every year, more and more users are getting passionate about photography. So when you're shopping for a gift to get someone, if they have a smartphone, chances are they'll more than appreciate some tools and accessories for taking better photos with their pocket friend — and we've got some gear ideas they'll love.