For those of us who love to multitask, picture-in-picture mode is a godsend. The feature, introduced in Android 8.0 Oreo, lets you enjoy videos in a floating window overlaid on top of another app. However, while the OS does have native support, only a select number of apps support the feature.
With the re-emergence of Samsung's Good Lock app, you're once again able to tweak parts of your Galaxy's interface with no root or major modifications required. One add-on in particular even lets you fully customize the Quick Settings panel on your S8, S9, or Note 8 in a full spectrum of colors to truly make it your own.
With the World Cup in Russia fast approaching, you're probably wondering how to keep track of your country (unless that country is the USA). While there are a ton of apps that do just that, there's one that stands above the rest if you're looking for World Cup coverage — and it's not ESPN, Yahoo, or CBS.
Escape rooms, those real world puzzle games that challenge teams to solve a mystery and gain their freedom from a locked room, are all the rage right now. But augmented reality games such as The Lockdown could make them obsolete.
Apple released iOS 12 on Sept. 17, and most of the announced features have been released for the iPhone's latest available operating system. However, some brand new features can be accessed with Apple's latest beta, iOS 12.4. If you want to try out all its new features before everyone else, you can install the developer or public beta on your iPhone right now.
Apple's doubling down on AR features in iOS 12 and iOS 13. The iPhone's augmented reality framework got a major overhaul with ARKit 2 and ARKit 3, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. While the updated API tools will help developers make better interactive apps, there's another new AR feature that regular users will enjoy: Animoji in FaceTime.
Uber as a service is great, but using it requires you to hand over your location data to the company. What's worse is that you may be giving them precious access to your GPS even when don't have the Uber app open. This is both a major privacy issue and a drain on your battery. Fortunately, some of you can fix this.
Electronics maker Epson is courting developers to its Moverio smartglasses with an updated software development kit (SDK) and integration with a web-based tool for publishing augmented reality experiences.
There's always been a clear divide between flagship and midrange phones. Flagships will run you at least $700, while midrange typically falls between $250 and $550. The main difference is the processor, with midrange phones sporting a 600-series Snapdragon and flagships rocking the 800-series. Now, Qualcomm may have just created another smartphone tier with their newly-unveiled 700-series chip.
Consumers are chomping at the bit for augmented reality smartglasses from Cupertino's finest, but one market analyst is saying not so fast, Apple fans. Meanwhile, automotive AR is gaining speed, with the latest milestone coming courtesy of a major investment in waveguides by Continental. And although mobile AR apps have already arrived, retailer Target is taking a different approach. So why is Target tinkering with web-based AR? Answers below...
Apple is speeding things up in the iOS 11.4 development. The company released to developers the fifth beta for iOS 11.4 on Monday, May 15. Public beta testers got the update just hours later. The update comes just one week after the release of the fourth 11.4 beta, which introduced minor bug fixes and security patches to iPhone running the software. This beta version doesn't seem any different.
Screen pinning is a fairly unknown feature despite the fact that it's been around since 2014. It's a helpful security tool that limits access to your device to only one app — perfect for those times when someone asks to borrow your phone. While previous versions kept this feature exactly the same, Android 9.0 Pie's new multitasking UI changes the way it works.
Cosmetics maker Coty is hanging an augmented reality Magic Mirror on the wall of its Bourjois boutique in Paris that will tell customers which shade of makeup will make them the fairest of them all.
Apple released the iOS 11.3.1 update for iPhones on Tuesday, April 24, 26 days after the official release of iOS 11.3 and eight days after the iOS 11.4 beta 2 update. It is the first minor update to iOS 11.3, and the biggest thing in it is a fix that lets displays fixed by third parties work again.
If you've unlocked your iPhone lately and noticed some apps aren't fully installed anymore, you're not alone. After updating my device recently to a newer version of iOS 11, I didn't immediately understand what caused a few of my games to uninstall themselves. It turns out, there's a simple setting that explains what's going on.
If it had come out just a week earlier, around April 1, no one would have believed it. But it's true, Leap Motion has developed its own prototype augmented reality headset, and it looks pretty wild.
If bezel-less was the goal of OEMs in 2017, 2018 seems to be the year of the notch. Thanks in no small part to Apple's iPhone X, more and more smartphone manufacturers are designing their displays with this polarizing cutout. While many are frustrated with the trend, it's worth taking the time to consider what each phone gains with the unique design.
MLB.TV is a great service that lets you watch most Major League Baseball games in North America, as long as you're a subscriber, of course. While I personally love it, blackouts can ruin the ability to watch my favorite teams. Fortunately, MLB At Bat Android users have an easy way to bypass blackout restrictions — and with no root required.
This week's Game Developers Conference came at just the right time for Magic Leap, a company that was riding a wave of bad news from legal troubles and rumors regarding Magic Leap One.
Update February 25: The Nokia 9 PureView was announced at Mobile World Congress! Read all of the official specs and details at our full rundown of Nokia's latest flagship.
As the week of the Game Developer's Conference hits the mid-point, we've already had some major announcements hit the AR space. The specific timing of these announcements are thanks in part to a conference within a conference called VRDC, aimed at VR, AR, and MR developers. And while the week is hardly over, the announcement that is still having a big effect on the developer population is the reveal of the Creator Portal for the long-awaited Magic Leap One device.
It is finally happening. After not having a major update since August of 2016, HoloLens owners everywhere will soon get a number of new features added to their devices. At least if they are members of the Windows Insider program.
According to Indiana Jones, certain things belong in museums, but, thanks to augmented reality, you can now see some of the ancient treasures of the world in your own home via the Civilisations AR app from the BBC.
DxOMark, an independent camera reviewer, has become the go-to place where consumers and OEMs alike hope for good camera scores on major new smartphones. The Google Pixel 2 has topped the charts since Oct. 2017, when the score no doubt helped pull the phone out from its troubled launch, but it has just been dethroned by the Samsung Galaxy S9+, which received the highest DxOMark score yet.
We already showed you the dark side of augmented reality in the form of a virtual girlfriend from Japan, but now the same country has given us something a lot less creepy that could be the future of virtual pop stars everywhere.
Google and Samsung are the biggest players in the Android world. Despite a rocky launch, Google's Pixel 2 XL became one of the premier Android devices of 2017, headlined by fast performance and a pure version of Android. Still, many users prefer Samsung's offerings, and their Galaxy S9+ is poised to be the phone to beat in terms of specs.
In one of the worst-kept secrets of the upcoming Mobile World Congress, Google has officially released ARCore on the Play Store for owners of the latest flagship Android smartphones.
This month, the power of artificial intelligence will be coming to more augmented reality developers as a leader in the game and 3D software development space and a major force behind the current school of cloud-based AI have officially announced a new partnership.
We regret to inform you the former king of third-party keyboards, Swype, has officially retired on both Android and iOS. A few weeks ago, we noticed Swype's mysterious disappearance from the iOS App Store but had hoped it was just pulled temporarily, not gone forever. Unfortunately, Swype is no more, but there's something that's ready to take its place for you on your phone.
Recently, many manufacturers have started offering phones with a clean, stock Android UI. Motorola, Essential, Nokia, and OnePlus are probably the biggest names that have listened to user feedback and shifted more towards AOSP. But if your phone still has a bloated OEM skin, there are a few things you can do about it.
A new smartglasses powerhouse is rising in Europe, led by two of the region's leading brands, optical systems company Zeiss (also known as Carl Zeiss) and telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom.
Super Bowl LII will bring millions of football and non-football fans together to watch the big game on the big screen. But without a cable subscription, this process can be a little daunting. Luckily, the Google Play Store and the iOS App Store offer a few ways to accomplish this — no cable contract required.
In 2017, after purchasing a majority of the 600 MHz frequency, T-Mobile began a massive rollout of the new LTE Bands across the US. However, there are currently only two devices that support the frequency, also known as LTE Band 71. Thanks to a recent FCC listing, we've learned this number will double when the Galaxy S9 and S9+ debut next month.
From its official launch back in September, iOS 11 has been equal parts revered as it has been criticized. Even with all the great, new features we've come to expect from a major iOS update, plenty of bugs and glitches have forced users to overlook the positives. Perhaps that is why, four months later, 25% of iPhone owners are still running iOS 10.3 or earlier.
Now that we finally have vertical plane recognition in ARKit (at least on a developer level until the spring iOS 11.3 release), the real promise of mobile augmented reality is beginning to come into focus on iOS. But a new report indicates that a major near future advancement of ARKit that could change everything has been put on hold by Apple.
Snapchat is one of the best ways for people to communicate with pictures, but it has a ton of other features baked into it. From the Memories feature to My Story, there are many ways to save save and share snaps among friends. Sometimes though, you want to add a little more pizzaz to your snaps. Luckily, Snapchat gives users a myriad of ways to interact with snaps before they're sent.
RED has apparrantly been blowing minds with the revolutionary technology inside its upcoming Hydrogen One. Like the Razer Phone in late 2017, most of the cool tech lives inside its screen — which, also like the Razer Phone, is unlike any other on the market today. RED, too, is poised to make some major waves in the coming months, as its phone should be arriving in stores this summer.
Apple just pushed out iOS 11.2.5 beta 7 today for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch to both developers and public beta testers. On Wednesday, Jan. 17, beta 6 was released, and there were two betas the previous week. With Apple promising a patch for "ChaiOS" next week for everyone, it's like iOS 11.2.5 will be that update.
Around this time in 2016, the predictions for the next year had reached something of a consensus: 2017 would be the year of augmented reality. But a funny thing happened on the way to the future — nothing much, really. At least not for the first half of the year.
It took a few months, but several major phones are finally receiving updates to Android Oreo. At this point, we've spent significant time talking about Oreo on the Galaxy S8, Galaxy Note 8, and Essential Phone. While an update to the latest OS is always great, there is one big Android 8.0 feature that isn't coming to every phone.
