News: Facebook Messenger Update Targets Augmented Reality Features in Snapchat
Continuing its unrelenting (and mostly successful) campaign against Snapchat, on Tuesday, Facebook announced the addition of "World Effects" to its Messenger app.
Continuing its unrelenting (and mostly successful) campaign against Snapchat, on Tuesday, Facebook announced the addition of "World Effects" to its Messenger app.
For those who thought the action in Pokémon Go was a bit too pedestrian, Father.io wants to recruit you for a multi-player, first-person shooter that unfolds on the streets of your own city.
To the best of my recollection, Fruit Ninja was one of the first touchscreen games that appeared to really take advantage of the new paradigm of user input, turning the player's finger into a produce-slicing katana.
Like gas on an open flame, rumors and whispers have flared up in recent months around hopes of augmented reality smartglasses from Apple. But among all the false leads and unsubstantiated chatter, we finally have a credible report that some sort of Apple AR smartglasses are actually in development.
Razer just made a big step into the mobile industry by releasing an absolute beast of a smartphone. The gaming-centric Razer Phone tries to provide the best experience for its target audience: Gamers. With that in mind, they created a top-tier device with some of the best specs available on Android. But how does it compare to the current spec champion, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8?
A tethered version of the Vuzix M300 smart glasses, developed to pair with wearable computers from Toshiba Corporation, is expected to be available by the first quarter 2018, if not sooner.
With four major carriers, buying an iPhone X or iPhone 8 can be more complicated than you'd think. While Apple has its own iPhone upgrade program, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile all have versions of their own. Which plan you choose depends on your needs and, of course, your carrier. However, getting around to upgrading can be challenging to say the least.
While IKEA is collaborating with Apple for its ARKit furniture app, Marxent is ready to help the rest of the interior decorating and home improvement crowd with their apps.
We continue to field stories underscoring the strong trends of Investment in augmented reality in various sectors. This week, one company strengthens their offerings to the enterprise sector, while two other companies capitalize on the promise presented by augmented reality to consumers – specifically, in gaming.
Netflix offers three different tiers of service. The good news is that no matter which subscription plan you choose, the available content is the same. Whether you choose the cheapest plan or the most expensive, you'll be able to watch any TV show or movie in Netflix's library. But there are other things to consider when choosing the plan that's right for you and your smartphone.
The BBC's Taster VR app released July 5 is providing new experiences visible on both iOS and Android, and one of the releases is a VR version of Planet Earth II. It is viewable on YouTube and works properly when viewed with a mobile VR headset.
The latest video game developer to hit the scene is a hotel chain, and they're offering big prizes for high-scorers.
Snapchat announced today that you can now design geofilters in-app, making it easier than ever to customize your snaps. This new feature incorporates a mobile creative studio, so you no longer have to use your computer to create your custom masterpiece.
A new Google Search update lets job-seekers streamline their search process. Searches like 'jobs near me' are now designed to show relevant opportunities from multiple sites.
Meet Android Excellence, Google's latest platform with the ability to showcase the highest quality apps and games on a quarterly basis. Sound familiar? It should.
The Google Pixel was just knocked off its pedestal as DxOMark Mobile's best smartphone camera, courtesy of the HTC U11. Ouch ...
In order for software developers to do their jobs as new hardware reaches the market, they will need the right tools to get their projects off the ground and into augmented and mixed reality devices. There have been completely new approaches to development when it comes to AR and MR, and these are some of the faces behind them.
Augmented reality software developer Edgybees has launched Drone Prix. The new mobile app immerses DJI drones and their pilots in more than 30 augmented reality obstacle courses.
Those of us with modern smartphones know that 4G LTE networks have provided us with a phenomenal experience. One light years beyond what we had access to before. For some time, AT&T has been teasing its dive into the next iteration of network speeds, agonizingly doing so without any specific dates for when they would actually deliver. But today, AT&T confirmed what they call the "5G Evolution," and it's available now.
It's safe to say most of us know the dangers of online security. We know there are people trying to steal our most sensitive information, and we try our best to prevent that theft. But new research is showing what we're doing might not be enough, as the sensors in our phones may be telling hackers everything they want to know.
It's fair to say that Google's messaging services are in a bit of a heap at the moment, and to make matters worse, Hangouts is removing its SMS capacities. Hangouts version 18 is now being rolled out, but doesn't appear to incorporate any functional changes.
Sony offers a set of free games to its PlayStation Plus subscribers every month, but it's easy to miss out if you're not constantly around your console. Perhaps you're traveling, or maybe you've stayed up one too many nights playing Uncharted, leading to a period of PlayStation detox. No matter what the case is, the good news is that you can use the PlayStation app for Android or iOS to claim these monthly free games without getting up from your seat.
Throughout the summer and fall of 2016, in the sudden whirlwind that was Pokémon GO, it was hard to go anywhere in public without seeing someone attempting to catch Pokémon. Now, thanks to an upcoming platform called Motive.io, from the Vancouver company of the same name, location-driven application development will soon be accessible to everyone.
Early this morning, Unity held their keynote at GDC 2017 in the InterContinental San Francisco hotel. During the event, they talked about their upcoming roadmap and many changes that are coming down the pipe. This list included the lighting explorer, progressive lightmapper, the new 4K video player, native support for Vulkan graphics, TextMesh Pro integration, and the one that really excites me as a HoloLens developer—dynamically/runtime created navigation meshes.
With the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Fransisco just a few weeks away, Microsoft Senior Program Manager Vlad Kolesnikov has announced via Channel9 (Microsoft's developer news outlet) that not only will new low-cost virtual reality headsets be coming in March to developers, but that they will be at GDC, too.
Uh oh. With millions of devices already sold, Apple's latest blunder is bound to upset the owners of some of their brand new iPhone 7 Plus phones.
Forget headphone jacks and "Courage." Look past the shiny Jet Black finish and beyond the minimized antenna lines. Sure, quad-LED flash and dual cameras are nice—but dual-SIM would've been much better.
We've been hearing rumors suggesting that the upcoming iPhone 7 would be announced a bit early this year—perhaps being unveiled as soon as September 7, with preorders opening up a day or two after.
New Android versions have always been released on a fairly regular schedule—in late Fall, Google debuts a new Nexus device, while simultaneously publishing the next iteration of the world's leading mobile operating system. But things are different this year, as we now have numerous indications that Android Nougat could be released as early as August or September.
If you want free Poké Balls and eggs when playing Pokémon GO, you can find them at PokéStops in variation locations around your city, which are marked with towering blue icons on your map. Once you're at Level 5, they'll also grant you Potions and Revives to help you in your battles against other trainers, so they're definitely something you should be visiting whenever you can.
Several major web services—most notably Facebook—have horrendous Android apps that occupy way too much space and drain battery life at an alarming rate. Such issues have led to a new trend where third-party developers create minimalist "lite" apps that are essentially the mobile website bundled into a native Android wrapper, freeing up storage space and saving battery life without sacrificing many features at all.
When shopping for a new smartphone, you'll encounter comparisons and spec sheets that are filled to the brim with values like mAh, GB, and GHz. To the average consumer, however, these values are meaningless, so we end up looking at which device has the specs with the highest actual numbers.
The upcoming version of Android has already been made available to certain devices for beta testing, but we won't see the official release of Android Nougat until sometime later this year, maybe even sooner than expected. The trouble here is that Google has made it really hard to wait patiently, because they've basically just teased us with a massive visual overhaul to the world's biggest mobile operating system.
BlackBerry has yet to find a home amongst the iPhone and popular Android phones, with sales plummeting over the last couple years, but this might be a thing of the past thanks to their latest device, the BlackBerry Priv. It has decent numbers so far and was even sold out on Amazon shortly after its initial release.
Cheap Chinese knockoffs have been around for ages, but recently, skyrocketing demand has led to a massive influx of counterfeit smartphones. Sellers on Craigslist seem to have no trouble getting ahold of these fake devices, then passing them off as the real deal and turning a solid profit before vanishing into thin air. This type of scam tends to happen even more frequently after Apple launches a new iPhone or Samsung debuts a new Galaxy.
Historically, battery life has not been a strong suit for machines running Windows. Poor decisions by hardware manufacturers combined with the resource-hogging behavior of Windows are to blame. However, Microsoft is trying to resolve this issue, once again, with the release of Windows 10.
Nearly nine months after the release of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, we finally have some solid information on the "S" model of Apple's flagship device, slated for release this fall. Coming straight from Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities (via AppleInsider), quite a few upgrades will be included in the next iPhone model.
Thanks to leaks and hard working developers, rooting tools for brand new Android devices are usually available right around the time of the smartphone's release, if not earlier. The Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge are no exception.
Big box stores love to sell gift cards, and as consumers, we snap them up almost as quickly as they can be printed. This industry has become rather profitable, though, because portions of the gift card balances often go unused.
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.