Tech tends to move forward without looking back, but that doesn't mean new is always better. One feature that dominated mobile phones in the late '90s had made a comeback thanks to Apple, and you can take advantage of it on your iPhone when making calls.
Apple announced the new iPhone 16 and 16 Pro series models on Sept. 9, and the focus on this year's smartphones was Apple Intelligence with an even smarter Siri. But generative artificial intelligence isn't the only new feature these devices come with. There are improved cameras, more advanced processors, new buttons, and more.
In the iOS 17.5 software update, released May 13, there are new features for EU countries and mobile device managers only, but there are also more widespread user-facing changes to Books, Podcasts, and other apps. News is one of those other apps, and it gives us more preferences for automatic downloads.
If you're an avid YouTube viewer, you may find yourself overwhelmed on the home page by recommendations from your past viewing habits. But now, you can have a clean slate on your YouTube home screen, free of recommendations.
You might have missed it, but the virtual keypad you use to enter phone numbers in your smartphone's dialer and contacts app isn't all numbers. Take a closer look, and you'll notice a few mysterious buttons you've likely been tuning out unconsciously. But it's time to stop ignoring them because each has a particular purpose that could come in handy one day.
Generative artificial intelligence has taken the tech world by storm, and Google's AI chatbot will give you a taste of what it offers.
For whatever reason, you may want or need to remove multiple posts from your Instagram grid. If you only have a couple to hide from the public, archiving or deleting posts one by one is fine, but there's a much faster way when you have tens or even hundreds of Instagram posts to purge from your account.
Spoofed phone calls originate from one source that's disguising its phone number as a different one, and you probably get these calls all the time. Maybe they're numbers from your local area code or for prominent businesses, but the callers are just hijacking those digits to fool you into picking up. Turns out, making a spoofed call is something anybody can do — even you.
With a simple web-based tool, you can hide secret messages for family, friends, and fellow spies inside of plain text communications, and anyone that intercepts the messages will be none the wiser.
Android 12 comes with new features and upgrades that any mobile gamer can appreciate, including Instant Play, which lets you play games instantly without downloading them first. Even better, there's Game Dashboard, which adds shortcuts for screenshots, screen recordings, and more in whatever game you play. The only problems are that it's not enabled by default, and it's a little hard to find.
From Time Machine to Cartoon 3D Style, Snapchat has strung together a run of viral AR Lenses as consistently as Beyoncé drops hits songs.
With the arrival of Facebook Ray-Ban Stories smartglasses commanding the recent spotlight, the tech world acted like it forgot about Facebook's first foray in consumer hardware — the Portal line of video calling devices.
While the rest of Big Tech is still moving relatively slowly on augmented reality smartglasses, Snap continues to supercharge its own experimental AR wearable called Spectacles.
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.
The most viral internet cat of the moment is a virtual kitty trapped in a billboard in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo, Japan.
Augmented reality technology is often likened to magic powers, so it is fitting that a new AR experience featuring the Harry Potter franchise uses the newest AR tricks from Facebook and its Spark AR platform.
While Snap may eventually compete with Apple and Samsung in selling smartglasses to consumers, today it is helping them achieve their business objectives via augmented reality.
The Paris-based technology conference Viva Technology, which hosted the likes of Apple's Tim Cook and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, is now over.
For awhile now, Google has offered the ability to translate text through smartphone cameras via Google Translate and Google Lens, with Apple bringing similar technology to iPhones via Live Text.
While Apple introduced new AR features for iOS 15 and Object Capture for Reality Kit 2 during the WWDC 2021 keynote, updates for ARKit were curiously absent in the official presentation.
It's (virtual) developer conference season, and this week was Facebook's turn with F8 Refresh. Like Google and Snap, Facebook had some new AR capabilities to show off.
After introducing a pair of new Spark AR capabilities last week, Facebook had one more trick up its sleeve to unveil at its virtual F8 Refresh developer conference.
The future of the HoloLens 2, according to Microsoft, is all about enterprise use cases. But that doesn't mean some of the more creative-minded HoloLens developers won't bend the top-tier augmented reality device to their own designs. The latest example of this trend comes from Japan.
As Apple prepares to potentially introduce its (mostly) secretive AR headset for possible introduction later this year and launch next year, the company has made a strategic investment to ensure its supply chain can support it.
After integrating Snapchat into its latest Galaxy A Series smartphones, Samsung is trying out a new AR camera app for its army of mobile devices.
At its height, the COVID-19 pandemic forced many auto showrooms to close their doors. As the pandemic persists, many consumers are still hesitant to let their socially distanced guard down.
Have you ever wondered where you'd come out if you drilled to the other side of the world? Now, if you have an Android device and Chrome web browser, you can find out.
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.
What is old is new again. In this case, a classic arcade game gets the augmented reality treatment. In a new promotion playing off its ad campaign featuring actor Craig Robinson (The Office, Hot Tub Time Machine), Pizza Hut has turned its pizza boxes into a virtual Pac-Man game via web-based AR technology.
The augmented reality industry has grown steadily over the past four years, but now it is on a collision course with uber-popular non-fungible tokens technology, with Looking Glass and music artist Reggie Watts among the latest to strike while the iron is hot.
Museum curators typically frown upon visitors touching paintings, sculptures, and artifacts, but not when those exhibits are displayed in augmented reality.
QR codes are so handy. Nowadays, all you have to do to scan one is open your phone's camera app and tap a button. But creating one is a different story — online QR code generators aren't always trustworthy, and most phones don't have a built-in feature for it. Thankfully, Google Chrome now does.
The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the demand for virtual and remote collaboration, and Microsoft has a solution that may serve as the catalyst for more such apps for augmented and virtual reality in the near future.
The average business person likely recognizes Epson for its printers or even its projectors, not the futuristic AR wearables.
High-end augmented reality devices like the HoloLens and the Magic Leap 1, as well as the Ultraleap motion tracking modules, have demonstrated robust hand-tracking capabilities. However, many AR wearables (including Magic Leap) still rely on handheld controllers for interactions in AR space.
Roughly a year ago, Samsung demoed its AR smartglasses prototype on stage at CES 2020. Now, videos showing off a new smartglasses model along with the company's imaginings of future AR experiences have surfaced through unofficial yet reliable channels.
In recent weeks, Google managed to capitalize on the hype surrounding the Star Wars streaming series The Mandalorian with an AR app that was not only exclusive to Android but also available only for 5G-equipped devices.
Video editing is no small task. Computationally, it requires some pretty hefty processing power, perhaps more so than any other task you might want to perform on your phone. But with the right software, doing something like blurring the faces of people in your videos doesn't have to be such a burden.
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.
You can't get the same gaming experience on your iPhone as you would on a PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, or gaming computer. The processing power is less, the controls inadequate, and there are many on-screen distractions, all of which make mobile gaming less enjoyable. While you can't fix many of these issues, there is a way to prevent some problems, and that's thanks to Guided Access.
