Welcome to the maiden voyage of our new Market Reality column. Each Friday, NextReality will give you a roundup of news briefs from the financial end of the augmented and mixed reality industry. We'll cover funding news, market analysis, and more.
Google, the company that rules the internet, is now testing a method to leverage its machine learning with its ubiquitous presence on mobile devices. The new model they're employing is called Federated Learning, and it hopes to apply artificial intelligence to Google's services on Android without compromising user privacy.
Amazon has been toying with the idea of opening physical retail stores for some time now, even opening old-fashioned bookstores in select locations and teasing cashier-less convenience stores. But the online retailer has some new ideas in the works, including implementing virtual and augmented reality into retail home stores.
LineageOS, the successor to the wildly popular CyanogenMod custom ROM, is adding an interesting new feature that could potentially save lots of juice when your battery is running low. When enabling "Extreme power saver" mode, which can be set to kick in automatically at 15%, you'll soon have the option of changing your kernel's performance profile as well.
Android 7.0 Nougat brought a lot of multitasking improvements along with it, but the most notable addition is a unified multi-window mode (which shines bright in Google's Pixel phones). This means that every Android device can now use the same split-screen interface, and the days of software fragmentation caused by differing multi-window implementations by LG and Samsung are now over.
Uber has recently been updating their app on a weekly basis to ensure that users have the smoothest travel experience possible. The entire UI was recently redesigned to increase user-friendliness, the total app size was reduced to improve performance, and an intelligent shortcuts feature was added which tries to guess your next destination.
Android Nougat is a godsend for tablet users, as it's packing some serious multitasking improvements. It goes well beyond the new split-screen mode, too, because as it turns out, there's a hidden setting that turns your apps into completely resizable windows within a desktop-like interface.
As the first phones to be made by Google, the new Pixel and Pixel XL have several slick customizations that you won't find on any other Android device. There's tons of functional stuff like the new Google Assistant and a much-improved camera app, but also a few aesthetic tweaks to help class up the joint.
iPhone and iPad users are getting a huge update with iOS 10, and one of the biggest (and most sought after) redesigns is to the Music app, as shown at Apple's WWDC '16. The redesign essentially makes the user interface easier to navigate, which was something that was fairly clunky starting in iOS 8.4 when Apple Music was first released.
Apple unveiled huge improvements for Messages in iOS 10 at WWDC '16, and my favorite new feature is that searching for emojis will be much, much easier. But there's a lot more to this update besides emojis.
Apple unveiled a 9.7-inch iPad Pro at their keynote event today, filling their roster to four different iPads. The smaller iPad Pro has the same screen size as the iPad Air 2, but comes with significant improvements under the hood. Keynote speaker Phillip Schiller rolled into the details: it's 40% less reflective than the Air with only 1.8% screen reflectivity, 25% brighter, produces 500 nits of light (making it "the brightest tablet available"), and has 25% greater color saturation. It also ...
Google dropped its opposition to T-Mobile's Binge On service due to some favorable policy changes at the magenta carrier. From now on, YouTube and Google Play Movies will happily work with the feature. Binge On rolled out late last year, allowing many customers to receive unlimited video streaming at 480p. That's not a great offer if you care about video quality, but it's nice if you want to save money.
Using a fingerprint scanner to keep intruders out of your phone might not be as secure as you think. Two researchers from Michigan State University, Kai Cao and Anil K. Jain, developed a relatively cheap and effective way to beat fingerprint readers, and successfully tested their method on a Samsung Galaxy S6 and Huawei Honor 7.
Android's main UI is looking so good these days that you hardly ever see developers spend time creating themes anymore. But even with the beauty of Material Design working in our favor now, there's always room for improvement, right?
Android's copy/paste menu and text selection options have traditionally been downright terrible, but things are starting to get better with some recent improvements made in Marshmallow. That being said, there's still a lot left to be desired, and there's always plenty of room for more useful functionality.
Microsoft had boasted that Windows 10 starts up as much as 30% faster than Windows 7 would on the same device, but depending on your setup, this can still be incredibly slow. Many programs choose to start up alongside Windows, which can make booting your PC quite a hassle.
Some third-party keyboards, like SwiftKey for example, include a convenient feature that suggests emojis as your type based on the content of what you're saying. Unfortunately, many keyboards, including most stock ones, don't include this function.
There are a number of ways to give your productivity a kicktstart, from taking a break from your distracting smartphone to just taking a break, plain and simple. Yet finding the motivation to start working doesn't require any effort at all—just a little bit of green.
OTW's great Tutorial Hack Like a Pro: How to Save the World from Nuclear Annihilation gives me the inspiration to try this on Win7 sp1.
If you're anything like me, clutter scattered across the bathroom counter, on the shower floor, or on any other available space is maddening. Who enjoys a mess of shampoos, scrubs, and sponges strewn around their feet or just out of reach in the shower? What can you do when space is limited?
Apple just recently launched its 10.10.3 Public Beta for Mac OS X Yosemite, and while it comes with mostly bug fixes for 10.10.2, it also includes a brand new Photos application that's meant to replace iPhoto and Aperture, as well as the inclusion of more diverse emojis.
Brought to you by Brother International Corporation. Whether you are looking to complete a home improvement task, or you are hoping to start a new hobby, staying focused and energized during projects can be daunting. With emphasis on organization, planning, and creativity, we gathered together tips that will help you successfully tackle any project on your plate!
Since the release of the Galaxy S5 back in April, the process of converting older models, like the Galaxy S4, to replicate the look and feel of the newest S-family member was inevitable. Galaxy users didn't want to be left out, and for good reason. The revamped interface of the S5 introduced a new color palette that was a definite improvement from the flat boring colors on older models.
As much as it pained me to lose lock screen widget functionality, I just can't bare changing out the sleek-looking lock screen that's standard on the OnePlus One. The latest OTA introduced a new transparent theme, and while that's a welcomed improvement, I need more options!
As carriers finalize their variations of the Android 4.4.4 update, we're left with only brief glimpses of what the new "Eye Experience" holds in store for us while we wait. However, thanks to a system dump of an updated European HTC One M8 and some clever hackery by donmarkoni, we can now install the new camera app on any variant of the HTC One M8.
The official release of iOS 8 was highly anticipated, but the truth is it may have been a little premature on Apple's part. Since its debut only a week ago, plenty of bugs and issues have been reported across the various compatible iPhone models.
Say goodbye to your boring stock Apple keyboard, because when iOS 8 is finally released, you'll be able to use Fleksy, SwiftKey, Swype, TouchPal, and other third-party keyboards on your iPad, iPhone, and/or iPod touch.
An app can request a wakelock to prevent your Android device from entering sleep mode so that it can sync data in the background. This obviously drains your battery, because instead of running in low-power sleep mode, your processor is fully activated while it performs its tasks.
Apple is bringing one of the biggest updates ever to its Messages app, including a feature that will allow users to send audio messages back and forth with the press of a button. Goodbye, voicemail.
It's not enough for me to just listen to a mindless EDM song that can be retooled as a torturing method for Guantanamo Bay. As an actual fan of music, I yearn for substance and depth. Artists like Morrissey, Kurt Cobain, and John Lennon impacted lives with not only their music, but the subject matter of their songs.
With rumors of the Active and Prime versions on the immensely popular Galaxy S5 circling the web for the past few weeks, today, we've got some clear proof of the upcoming Active variant.
If you've followed our guide on unlocking KitKat's real full screen capability using the immersive mode mod, then your status and navigation bars will be hidden when not in use, giving you a more expansive full screen experience.
It's here... Update: May 1, 2014
As an added functionality to the S Pen, the Pen Window enables you to create floating application windows on your Samsung Galaxy Note 3—a tool that's extremely useful when it comes to multitasking.
As Nexus owners, we love our device's operating system, and it's probably the reason we went for a pure Google experience in the first place. But that doesn't mean there's not room for improvement in Android, especially when the OS has so many freely available softMods to tinker with.
Allowing us to easily get features that would otherwise be available only through flashing mods and custom ROMs, Xposed Installer has been a godsend since its development, simplifying the sometimes tasking and potentially harmful process of changing the core components of Android's operating system.
The newest version of Android, 4.4.2 KitKat, is making its way onto AT&T Samsung Galaxy S4s right now. Itching to try out the latest that Google has to offer? Keep an eye on your status bar for a notification letting you know that a system update is ready.
Apple's just released a new beta of iOS 7.1 for developers, Beta 5, which fixes some small bugs and adds some minor feature enhancements. With previous reports stating that the final version of 7.1 was slated for a public release in March, these early leaks are indications that the final will be released in the following weeks, shortly after the Golden Master version hits developers.
For those of you who have (or had) and iPhone, one of the cooler photo apps for iOS was VSCO Cam, an extremely popular camera with pro-quality filters and effects. Now this app is available for Android on Google Play for your Nexus 7 tablet and any other devices running Android 4.0 and up.
The newest update for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch is near, and I've got a firsthand look of what's to come in the new iOS 7.1, the first major update since iOS 7 was released.
