The COVID-19 pandemic has created a frenzy for news and information that is nearly unprecedented in the smartphone era, with a major side effect of misinformation. Now, major tech companies are making it easier to ask for advice about novel coronavirus from their respective digital assistants. Results may vary, but Apple and Google are the most useful at the moment.
Up until Android 5.0 Lollipop, the actual text of incoming notifications would scroll by in your status bar. These ticker style alerts didn't pop on screen or interfere with what you were currently working on, but you could still read the message. They were replaced by the new "heads up" alerts, but you can still bring them back.
Computer vision is a key component in enabling augmented reality experiences, but now it can help give sight to the blind as well. In this case, that assistance comes from Envision, developers of mobile apps for iOS and Android that use optical character recognition (OCR) and object detection to provide an audio description of the user's surroundings.
While holographic Whitney Houston is hitting the road, a new mobile app is bringing volumetric captures of up and coming performers directly to the iPhones and iPads of fans.
Life is too chaotic to be organized all the time, but little steps in the right direction make things easier overall. File folders keep paperwork from spiraling out of control. Spice jars take the clutter out of cabinets. Storage totes keep basements neat and tidy. But to find what you're looking for faster, you need a label maker.
Google pushed a new kind of augmented reality walking navigation to the mainstream last year, and now startup Phiar is hoping users will use its AR app in the same way for driving navigation.
In his famous 1996 "Content is King" essay, Bill Gates predicted that content is where tech companies will make money on the Internet. The adage clearly holds true in the current phase of augmented reality experience.
With the rise of smartwatches and wearables, you'd almost expect to need one to get a heart rate reading. While these devices can be helpful, not everyone has or wants to wear a gadget all the time to track their BPM. Luckily, when you combine Google Fit with a popular third-party heart rate measuring app, it will make things easy for you.
Your iPhone tracks how many steps you take, how far you walk, and how many stairs you climb each day. That may seem a bit frightening, but it's all for a good reason: the Health app stores this data so you can view your progress in one place. But interestingly, opening the Health app isn't the easiest way to view this info.
Let's be honest, nobody enjoys doing cardio — they tolerate it. That dreadful, loathsome feeling you experience when you're doing cardio workouts isn't unique to you, it's almost universal. Sure, it gets easier the more you do it, but there are some ways to make it better now.
This week's Magic Leap Lumin OS update contained a number of goodies, including iris authentication, and a way to stream to Twitch from the device.
After exiting the mobile market, Microsoft has redirected its efforts to better integrating their services with Android. Thanks to a partnership with Samsung, that Windows integration is even better if you have a Galaxy phone.
In iOS 13, Apple Maps makes it easier for you to organize essential places on your iPhone, allowing you to save locations as favorites that you can access at a glance.
After opening up its Spark AR platform on Instagram for all creators, Facebook is already expanding the platform's capabilities on its Snapchat killer.
Google's "Go" line of apps are lightweight counterparts designed to be limited speedy alternatives to their full-featured sibling apps. There is a Go version of Photos, Search, Maps, and more — but are they the right apps for you?
From the iPhone X onward, the Side button has taken on many of the functions associated with the Home button, such as summoning Siri, pulling up the AssistiveTouch shortcut, and more. So if you've finally ditched your Home button iPhone for the latest iPhone 11, the process of shutting down and restarting is something you'll need to learn all over.
You usually reply to emails on your own ... unless it's related to your work. You may want input from coworkers or higher-ups, and while forwarding works, Spark offers an easier way to discuss important emails with others. Using Spark for Teams, you can easily share an email with your team and discuss it privately.
One of my biggest gripes with the Mail app on iOS is that it makes it super hard to select multiple emails quickly in a search. For instance, if you want to delete all emails from one sender, it could take a seriously long time to do it the usual way. A bug in iOS 12 and older helped make the process faster, but it's no longer around in iOS 13, but Apple did include a faster way to select multiple emails.
The punch hole design of the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 has challenged users to find a clear way to deal with it. Although it's less intrusive than a notch, if left unaccounted for, it can be just as much of an eyesore. One of the more creative ways we've found is to use as a battery indicator.
Facebook had a pretty big week in terms of augmented reality, with much of its news coming from the Oculus 6 keynote presentation. But Mark Zuckerberg's social media company found other areas of impact outside of Oculus 6 as well.
Apple has packed a lot of new features into the iOS 13 update, and practically no core app has gone untouched. The Messages app, in particular, got plenty of love, including new ways to dress and use your Memojis.
I go back and forth between two home screen apps: Nova Launcher and Action Launcher. While I prefer the aesthetics of Nova, I like Action's Quickpage feature since it puts some of my favorite apps just a swipe away. But now, I've found a way to replicate this feature on Nova (or any other launcher), and it works even better.
After hosting an augmented reality experience using its Snapchat Landmarker technology at the Statue of Liberty, Snap is now giving creators the opportunity to create their own Lenses with Lady Liberty.
In iOS 13, Safari has become even more powerful, especially when it comes to privacy. The browser will warn you when you create a weak password for a new account. Your history and synced tabs in iCloud are end-to-end encrypted now. And there are per-site settings that let you choose which domains can and can't have permission to use particular device hardware or sensors.
The S Pen in the Galaxy Note 10 and 10+ has improved to make remote usage even easier. Controlling your phone with just the stylus is no longer a party trick, as you can now move around and take actions in both first-party and third-party apps. One of the best examples of this is the Camera app.
When it comes to shooting games, battle royale titles like PUBG and Fortnite have come to dominate the scene, leaving other sub-genres like top-down and third-person shooters living in the shadows. They're far from irrelevant, though, as evidenced by all the great games released just in 2019 alone.
Viewing and reading content on websites is inherently harder to do on an iPhone due to the relatively small display. Even if you have an iPhone XS Max or 11 Pro Max, you'll probably struggle sometimes to read through tiny text while browsing online. Thanks to a feature found within Safari's view menu in iOS 13, your eyes can rest a little easier.
In the last few years, the HoloLens has become a popular tool for use in medical procedures and training. But recently, the Magic Leap One has gained momentum in the space as well when it comes to medical use cases.
The photos and videos you take with your iPhone contain bits of information, known as metadata, including the location where they were taken. This metadata makes it easier for Photos to organize your media, but put these photos and videos in the wrong hands and anyone can find out where you live or work. Luckily, iOS 13 makes it easy to wipe the geotag from images and videos before sharing.
For those with small hands, smartphones have gotten out of control as of late. Nearly every flagship phone is over six inches in length, so many are forced to use phones that are too big for them and hope they don't fall. Well, thanks to one developer, using these phones can be a lot easier.
Like clockwork, Apple has unveiled the latest additions to its ARKit tookit at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference, where ARKit first said hello to the world in 2017, as well as some new tools that take a direct shot at Unity, Unreal Engine, and others.
The last third season episode of Rick and Morty aired Oct. 1, 2017. Over a year and a half later, we finally have confirmation that everyone's favorite morally ambiguous, universe-traveling duo will make their return in November. While six months is still quite a wait, you can make it go faster by catching up on some classic episodes.
Bloatware remains one of the biggest problems with Android, especially when tied to a carrier. Removing bloatware usually requires you to take extreme measures like rooting. Unfortunately, the Galaxy S10 falls under this annoying umbrella, but there's an easy workaround.
Because of the way Android is laid out, you automatically lose a portion of the top and bottom of your screen thanks to the status and navigation bars. The thing is, you don't always need the navigation buttons. By hiding them, you can enjoy more of your Galaxy S10's big, beautiful display.
On Monday, Apple unveiled its Apple Card, the company's boldest move yet toward becoming a truly mainstream mobile payments company. And the product has vast implications for our augmented reality future, some of which may not be immediately obvious to many.
While Google would rather you use Google as the default search engine in Chrome, there's a way to switch to the more privacy-geared DuckDuckGo search engine for all your web browsing needs. With DuckDuckGo, the company does not track anything you search or allow anyone else to track it, so you can effectively search from your iPhone or Android phone anonymously.
Slack recently released a dark mode for its Android and iOS apps, and for the most part, it works great. Super dark gray backgrounds and light gray fonts, which is much easier on the eyes than blinding white backgrounds and black text. But there's one thing that is not affected by the new night mode setting — your sidebar.
If you use the mobile Slack app, whether for work, school, or play, you know that the background color in discussions for channels, threads, and direct messages is white and that most of the text is black. Unlike with the sidebar, there's no way to customize the colors that appear here, but you do have one other option: dark mode.
After years of waiting, Microsoft has finally updated its industry-leading augmented reality device, the HoloLens.
Browsing the web can be dangerous. With all of the various threats out there, it isn't enough to just avoid bad links and visit only HTTPS websites. You need to take advantage of the tools available to you so you don't end up the victim of some scam. Fortunately, Opera is making this a bit easier.
