News: Upgrade to iOS 15 & Play with These 10 New Features
If you're not planning to upgrade to a new iPhone 13, the new version of the iPhone operating system will breathe some new life into your iOS device.
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Market Reality: Olympics AR Content on Instagram & Google, Facebook's Metaverse, & Snapchat's Magic Karaoke
Over the past week, practically every major tech company working on augmented reality has held their quarterly earnings calls with investors, and each addressed or at least mentioned the role of AR during their prepared remarks. However, Facebook's earnings call had some of the spicier commentary on the technology.
Market Reality: Facebook & Harry Potter AR, MLB AR App, Doritos AR Ads, NFT Holographic Future, & Google Meet AR Filters
Brands are increasingly adopting augmented reality to promote their products and services, and they have multiple paths for bringing AR experience to their audiences.
How To: 15 Awesome FaceTime Alternatives for Cross-Platform Video Calls on Android & iOS
In these times of social distancing, video calling is becoming the technological substitute for face-to-face connections. For those who carry an iPhone, the art of video calling defaults to FaceTime, the native app on iOS that is exclusive to Apple devices. But what do you do if you or the other party is on Android?
Market Reality: Apple & Facebook Spill AR Details, Niantic's AR Transformers, Looking Glass Unboxed, & Snap's Viral Lens
The makers of arguably the two most important mobile AR apps, Niantic and Snap, both had good news this week, with the former preparing to replicate its success with Pokémon GO for another franchise and the latter notching another popular augmented reality Lens for Snapchat.
News: How to Get a Pair of Snap's New Spectacles AR Smartglasses
The tech world was taken by surprise this week with the unexpected unveiling of Snap's augmented reality Spectacles smartglasses.
News: Snap Now Lets You Build Lego in AR Remotely with Others, Reveals AR Tie-Up with Disney, Plus AR Business Tools
The surging activity in augmented reality in both the business and consumer sectors is being matched with a wealth of updates and partnerships from Snap Inc.
How To: You Need a DAC to Enjoy Apple Music's Hi-Res Lossless Audio — Here Are the Best Options
On May 17, Apple announced that Lossless Audio playback for Apple Music was finally coming to subscribers in June. The long-awaited option will let users stream songs at a much higher quality than ever before. Still, in the fine print, Apple noted that you wouldn't be able to listen to the best sound quality — Hi-Resolution Lossless — on your iPhone without a DAC.
Market Reality: Microsoft's Consumer Smartglasses, Apple Invests in Corning & Niantic Launches Lightship Beta
Sure, Microsoft has mostly marketed its HoloLens headsets towards enterprises and developers, but we learned this week that, like every other tech giant, the company is working on a consumer-grade AR wearable. Speaking of consumer smartglasses, Apple made another strategic investment this week that has implications for Apple's AR future.
News: Campfire CEO Jay Wright on How He Plans to Use AR to Transform How We Work & Collaborate
The mission to rise above the fray to become a leading player in the augmented reality business is a moving target that depends on innovation, resources, and timing.
News: Marvel Heroes Invade ESPN's NBA Broadcast of Warriors vs. Pelicans Game via AR
Two brands with affinities for augmented reality, Marvel and the NBA, joined forces to inject some AR superpowers into Monday night's matchup of the Golden State Warriors and New Orleans Pelicans.
AR Snapshots: Celebrate May the Fourth Be with You Day with These Star Wars Snapchat AR Lenses
Thanks to the grandest of puns, May the 4th is Star Wars Day. And what better way to pay tribute to the space opera than with the augmented reality superpowers of Snapchat.
Market Reality: Apple's AR Spaces, Facebook's AR Future, Snap's 3D Acquisition & Campfire AR Headset Launch
There's already some fierce competition between Snap and Facebook in the AR space, but it's about to heat up even more, with Snap snatching up a 3D mapping startup that could add some new AR capabilities to its arsenal.
How To: Can't Wait for iOS 14.5? You Can Install It on Your iPhone Right Now Before It's Officially Out
Apple's iOS 14.5 is the biggest update since iOS 14.0 came out, with over 50 confirmed features and more being discovered every day. There are new emoji, support for AirTags, more privacy controls, and exciting upgrades to Siri, Maps, Reminders, Podcasts, Music, and even Shortcuts. So it wouldn't surprise us if you want to get this on your iPhone ASAP.
AR Snapshots: Snapchat Pumps Out Billie Eilish, Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift & the Beatles
Snapchat and its augmented reality capabilities have become a haven for music artists seeking to promote their new albums or simply amplify their art with immersive experiences.
Market Reality: Apple AR Headset Event in the Works, Snap & Niantic Have Their Own Smartglasses Plans
The race for the future of AR wearables gained steam this week with several pivotal developments. First, Apple, the subject of numerous reports and rumors regarding its purported AR headset, is reportedly eyeing an in-person unveiling of the device for later this year, rather than introduce it at its upcoming virtual Worldwide Developers Conference, which would usually be as good a time as any to make a big AR hardware announcement.
News: Apple Releases iOS 14.5 Public Beta 6, Features New Siri Voices & Battery Health Calibration for iPhone 11 Line
Apple seeded software testers iOS 14.5 public beta 6 today, Wednesday, March 31. The update includes a new battery calibration for iPhone 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max, as well as two new Siri voices.
News: Apple Releases iOS 14.5 Beta 6 to Developers, Includes Battery Health Calibration for iPhone 11 Line
Apple just seeded developers the sixth iOS 14.5 beta today, Wednesday, Mar. 31. The update includes a calibration for battery health measurements for the iPhone 11 line, as well as two new Siri voices.
News: Inside Microsoft Mesh, What Is It & How Does It Work? We Have the Answers
When Microsoft unveiled Mesh a couple of weeks ago, the move revealed a major part of Microsoft's next steps toward dominating the augmented reality space, particularly with regard to enterprise customers.
AR Snapshots: Your Cats & Dogs Can Join in Your AR Antics with These Pet-Friendly Snapchat Lenses
The face tracking of cats and dogs are probably my favorite AR innovations that have come to Snapchat Lenses over the past few years.
How To: Generate Crackable Wi-Fi Handshakes with an ESP8266-Based Test Network
If you've wanted to get into Wi-Fi hacking, you might have noticed that it can be pretty challenging to find a safe and legal target to hack. But you can easily create your own test network using a single ESP8266-based microcontroller like the D1 Mini.
How To: Mute Your Mac's Microphone Automatically When Typing During Zoom Meeting Calls
You're in a Zoom meeting, and you're click-clacking away at your keyboard, typing important notes from the call. More realistically, you're doing something unrelated to the meeting, such as browsing the web, playing a game, or messaging friends. Whatever it is you're typing, if your microphone is on, everyone on the Zoom call will be able to hear the sound of you typing.
How To: 10 New Features & Changes for Your iPhone in iOS 14.4
Outside of iPhone releases, software updates are arguably the most exciting aspects of iOS life. It's like Christmas morning when your iPhone installs an update, as you dive through your device to find all the new features and changes Apple thought to include. With iOS 14.4, there are at least 10 such new additions just waiting for you to explore.
NR30: Next Reality's 30 People to Watch in Augmented Reality for 2020
The year 2020 was a pivotal span of time during which the word "virtual" took on a brand new meaning. Instead of referring to VR or augmented reality, the term was hijacked to describe meeting across long distances through a variety of software tools, most often through video.
News: Snapchat's Spotlight Confirms That the TikTok, Instagram Social Media War Is On — And AR Is the Next Battlefront
In the realm of social media, all roads lead to one destination: cracking the code of continuous partial attention dopamine hits. We learned this back in the days of Vine, before Twitter foolishly killed it. And I pointed my lens at the emerging trend back in 2016 when I highlighted Musical.ly for Mashable, just before it was snapped up by China's Bytedance for $1 billion and merged into what is now TikTok.
How To: Auto-Change Your iPhone's Background with MacOS Big Sur's Dynamic Wallpapers
Three new wallpapers showed up in iOS 14.0, each with dark and light versions, while iOS 14.2 added eight more. Each iPhone also has live wallpapers catered specifically for it. However, none of Apple's wallpapers are dynamic. That means they won't change automatically based on certain conditions, such as what time of day it is. MacOS's do, though, and you can get those working on your iPhone.
How To: What Do All Those 5G Status Icons Mean on Your iPhone 12, 12 Mini, 12 Pro, or 12 Pro Max?
If you upgrade to an iPhone 12, 12 mini, 12 Pro, or 12 Pro Max, you can take advantage of super-fast 5G speeds, but which 5G network are you actually getting and is it better than the others? Depending on your carrier, you may see 5G, 5G+, 5G UW, or 5G E in the status bar next to the signal strength, and there's a pretty big difference between them.
How To: How & Why You Should Change Your iPhone's Name
You might be giving out your name to every stranger you see, and you don't even know it. That iPhone of yours has a name — generally a combination of your first name and device model — and it broadcasts it to others via AirDrop, Personal Hotspot, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and other connections. Sure, it's useful to keep your device name simple and to the point, but there are upsides to changing it.
How To: Make Google Calendar Open Meeting Links in Google Meet Instead of the Gmail App
If Google's apps, namely Gmail, Calendar, and Meet, are at the center of your workday, then a new, frustrating change may upset your routine.
How To: iOS 14 Lets Your Memoji Wear Surgical Masks & Cloth Face Coverings of Any Color
Apple's big iOS 14 update includes Memoji improvements such as new hairstyles and headwear to choose from for your personalized Animoji character. Even better, there are now face coverings, so you no longer have to resort to that one masked emoji to get the point across in these times of COVID-19.
How To: 16 New Apple Maps Features for iPhone in iOS 14, Including Cycling Routes, New Widgets & City Guides
Once the laughing-stock of the navigation app market, Apple Maps is now a powerful, reliable travel companion. Apple rebuilt the platform from the ground up, placing the app in league with Google Maps. That said, there's always room for improvement, as demonstrated by its impressive new features set in iOS 14.
How To: Back Up Your iPhone Using iTunes on macOS or Windows
It's easy to back up and restore your iOS devices using iCloud, but there are a few downsides to encrypted iCloud backups. For one, Apple holds the key to decrypt all the data. Plus, you're limited to only 5 GB of data for free before you have to upgrade your storage to 50 GB, 200 GB, or 2 TB.
News: Everything You Need to Know About AT&T, T-Mobile & Verizon's 5G Networks
5G is here. Well, not everywhere. All three wireless carriers have turned on their 5G networks, but only in select markets. Like 4G, each carrier is doing things a bit differently, which means your 5G experience will not be the same across the board.
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.
How To: Analyze Wi-Fi Data Captures with Jupyter Notebook
When it comes to sniffing Wi-Fi, Wireshark is cross-platform and capable of capturing vast amounts of data. Making sense of that data is another task entirely. That's where Jupyter Notebook comes in. It can help analyze Wi-Fi packets and determine which networks a particular phone has connected to before, giving us insight into the identity of the owner.
Vision Forecast 2020: AR Execs Weigh in on Recent Industry Milestones & What We Can Expect in the Coming Year
The year 2019 was filled with all the normal peaks and valleys of the tech business cycle, but this year was particularly important in a space as relatively young as the augmented reality industry.
How To: Back Up Your iPhone with Finder on MacOS
Apple said goodbye to iTunes with the release of macOS Catalina, breaking up music, videos, and podcasts into their own respective apps, Music, TV, and Podcasts. But without iTunes, what app's in charge of interfacing with your iPhone? That would be Finder, and you use it to sync your iPhone, as well as back it up and archive backups for emergency restores.
How To: The Ultimate Guide to Customizing Your iPhone
Cases and stickers are always great, but they aren't the only way to customize an iPhone. The software on your device is full of customization options, from a better-looking home screen and cooler lock screen wallpapers to app icon changes and a system-wide dark mode. There's literally over 100 ways to make iOS on your iPhone genuinely unique, some of which are hiding in plain sight.
News: Google Pixel 4 Hands-on Review & Spec Analysis
It's always a big deal when the company that makes Android releases a new phone. Google's Pixel series has made a name for itself in three short years behind its camera prowess, but now it's time to start competing with the major players. That said, Google should like how their Pixel 4 and 4 XL stack up against the iPhones and Galaxies of the world.
News: New iOS 13 Features — The 200+ Best, Hidden & Most Exciting New Changes for iPhone
Apple's iOS 13 has been available for beta testing since June, and the stable release pushed out to everyone on Thursday, Sept. 19. To help you make the most out of iOS 13 for iPhone, we've rounded up everything you'll want to know, whether a colossal feature, small settings change, interface update, or hidden improvement.