News: Baby with Severe Zika-Related Birth Defects Born in San Diego County
A baby with severe Zika-related birth defects was born in San Diego County this week, prompting officials to urge pregnant women to avoid disease hotspots.
Prompt Electronic Search Results
News: Snapchat Has Made This App Explode
Bitmoji has experienced explosive success this year thanks to Snapchat. The app allows users to create their own personal emoji and send responses to other friends, and even though it's only two and a half years old, this customizable emoji app is growing at an impressive pace.
News: This App Notifies You Every Time a Trump Tweet 'Triggers' Your Stocks
Every time Donald Trump tweets about a stock you own, Trigger Finance, or just Trigger—the app founded on the "if this, then that" rule to track and invest in the stock market—alerts you with a notification for real-time analysis of financial data.
News: Latest Facebook Messenger Update Adds Live Location Sharing
Facebook Messenger has now incorporated a live location sharing feature, one week after Google Maps revealed its own real-time location tool. On Monday, the social media giant announced the new feature, which will allow users to share their live whereabouts with friends at the press of a button.
News: T-Mobile Helps You Dodge All Those Annoying Phone Scams with New 'Scam Likely' Warnings
T-Mobile just unveiled two new services—Scam ID and Scam Block—which specifically target those pestering robo-calls that reach out to 2.4 million Americans every month.
How To: Easily Remove Old Photos in WhatsApp to Free Up Storage on Android
Over a billion people use WhatsApp, which makes it the most popular standalone messaging service out there. But if you're one of the many people whose group of friends relies on WhatsApp for all communication, chances are, you have several years-long messaging threads with all sorts of random pictures and GIFs cluttering up the place.
How To: Get Sony's New Xperia Music App with Material Design on Any Android
Anybody who was around in the '80s and '90s associates Sony with music still to this day, thanks to their wildly successful Walkman brand. And that's not even mentioning their major label record company. Indeed, the Tokyo-based electronics maker/media conglomerate has music embedded in its DNA, and that's certainly noticeable in the stock Music app included with their Xperia phones.
How To: Get Better Ad Blocking with This Xposed Module & AdAway
When it comes to ad blocking on Android, there's no better app than AdAway. The popular root mod filters out ads at the hosts file level, so no extra processing power is used, and your phone is literally incapable of loading most ads.
How To: Keep Android's Notification Tray Clean & Clear with a Centralized Hub
Android's notification system is quite robust, especially now that Google added bundled notifications and quick reply features to Android 7.0 Nougat. However, things can still get quite cluttered when you have several unread messages, which fills your status bar with icons and makes your notification tray take up half of the screen by itself.
How To: Get Motorola's Lighter, Faster Gallery App on Any Android Device
Ever since QuickPic was sold to a known adware company, there's been a glaring need for lightweight and fast third-party gallery apps on Android. For the folks that don't want to use Google Photos and other cloud-based solutions, a gallery app that loads your locally-stored pictures quickly without taking up much storage space is the best possible fit.
How To: Block Contact Request Spam on Skype Automatically
Skype is one of the most popular messaging and video chat services for a good reason—it's packed to the brim with tons of cool features. But one bit of functionality that Microsoft left out is the ability to block friend requests from people that aren't in your contacts, which can lead to a lot of unwanted notifications from spammers and bots.
How To: Add a Google Photos Shortcut to Your Android's Camera App
If your Android phone was made by Samsung, LG, HTC, or any other manufacturer that likes to apply skins on top of stock Android, then your camera app is tied to the custom gallery app that was preinstalled on your device. In other words, when you tap that little image preview icon after taking a picture, you'll be taken to a camera roll interface that was made by an electronics manufacturer.
How To: Get Easy Updates on Sideloaded Android Apps
Some of the best Android apps are not hosted on the Google Play Store, and that means you have to sideload them if you want to get their awesome functionality. But without the Play Store, these APKs are never automatically updated, so your only choice has been to scour the internet for a newer version when you need a bugfix.
How To: Download YouTube Audio or Video from Your Android
YouTube won't let you play videos in the background on Android without paying for YouTube Red, so if it's your primary source for streaming music, and you don't want to shell out $9.99/month, you'll just have to take matters into your own hands. The simplest solution to this problem would be to download MP3s straight from YouTube for offline playback, but in the past, this hasn't exactly been easy on a mobile device.
How To: Switching from iOS to Android? Here's Everything You Need to Do
Smartphone manufacturers do their best to keep you tied down to their ecosystem, but the reality is that there's not much keeping you from switching. Transfer some files, install a few apps here and there, and all of a sudden, you're knee-deep in a new operating system.
News: WhatsApp Is Now Sharing Your Data with Facebook, but Opting Out Doesn't Solve the Problem
When Facebook purchased WhatsApp for $19.3 billion back in 2014, we all knew this was coming—it just took longer than we thought. But starting today, the data mining became official, and now, information from your favorite messaging app is no longer out of reach for the world's biggest social media site.
How To: Get the Galaxy Note5's Air Command Feature on Any Android
With every flagship device they release, Samsung makes sure to add in at least a few little software goodies. Last year's Galaxy Note5 was no exception, because among other things, Samsung included a revamped version of their useful utility called Air Command that gave users quick access to tools and common functions with a small floating bubble.
How To: Use Samsung's Hidden Hearing Test to Get Drastically Better Sound Quality from Your Galaxy
A lot of folks complain about the extra features Samsung adds to Android, but while there are some benefits to the slimmer stock Android, the TouchWiz firmware on Galaxy devices definitely has its own advantages.
How To: Get Android Nougat's New Navigation Keys Right Now
The new Google phones, which are rumored to ditch the Nexus moniker for Pixel, will most likely come with an Android feature that 7.0 Nougat doesn't currently have—a new set of navigation keys.
How To: Auto-Mute Group Chat Notifications Before They Get Annoying
If you have any group chats going, you're surely familiar with this scenario: One person sends a picture, then, within 30 seconds or so, all other participants chime in with one-word responses like "Cute," or "Awesome." It's a social nicety, so you have to expect this behavior, but that doesn't make it any less annoying when your phone randomly beeps and vibrates ten times in a row because of it.
How To: Stop Apps from Accessing Your Google Account
Many apps and services that are available for Android can only work if they have access to your Google account. While you're setting up one of these apps, you'll see a popup that says something like "This app would like to access your Google account," and the options are "Accept" or "Cancel." Of course we tap "Accept" here to ensure that the app will work properly, but what are the long-term repercussions of doing that?
How To: Remove the Lock Screen Camera Shortcut on Your iPhone in iOS 10
The new lock screen in iOS 10 is a lot different than previous versions, but one thing that stuck around is the quick access camera shortcut. The only real difference aside from aesthetics is that now you don't have to swipe up from the camera icon. Instead, you can simply swipe to the left from right side to quickly snap a picture.
How To: Remove Stock Apple Apps on Your iPhone
Before iOS 10 existed, you were stuck with every single app Apple shoved down your digital throat. While you could hide a few of them with some trickery, you couldn't remove any of them. Now, you can remove almost any Apple app you want from your home screen — for good — just like any third-party app.
How To: Get Samsung's Battery-Saving Grayscale Mode on Your Android
Several Samsung phones have a feature that turns the screen black and white when the battery is getting low. This takes advantage of the AMOLED display in these devices, because unlike red, green, and blue pixels, no battery power is used to display black pixels on this type of screen.
How To: Get the Chrome Experience on Android Without Google Tracking You
If you're tired of Google tracking you, but love how Chrome works, CyanogenMod has you covered. Their browser is called Gello, which is based off Chromium, Chrome's open-source counterpart. It's basically a souped-up version of Chrome—without all of the intrusive Google stuff. So if you're uncomfortable with Google displaying personalized ads based on your browsing history, or using your location to bring the "Physical Web" to your phone, you won't have to worry about any of that with Gello.
How To: Add a Dancing Music Visualizer to Your Nav Bar
CyanogenMod, the popular custom ROM available for many Android devices, has a nice little feature that displays a music visualizer beneath your on-screen navigation keys while you're listening to your favorite songs. It's a subtle touch, but it makes for a more immersive experience when you're jamming out while using your phone or tablet.
How To: Use This App to Test Out Tattoos Before They're Permanent
If you're in the market for a new tattoo, the biggest hurdle to clear is imagining exactly how it's going to look. It's going to be part of your identity for the rest of your life, so you have to make sure it looks just right—or as your mom probably told you, "Think of what it's going to look like when you're 60."
How To: Get Sliding Gestures for Seamless Volume Control on YouTube
The VLC Player app for Android has a really nice feature that allows you to adjust brightness and volume by sliding your finger up or down on the left or right side of your screen, respectively. It helps keep you immersed in the video while you're in full screen mode, since you don't have to mess around with any popups or overlays to perform these basic functions.
Siri 101: How to Disable Siri on Your iPhone's Lock Screen
If you like having Siri available to answer a quick question every now and again but don't want everyone who picks up your iPhone to also have access to your personal assistant, there's an easy way to disable her from working on your iPhone's lock screen. This is also something you can do if you're always activating Siri accidentally in your pocket.
How To: Automatically Skip YouTube Ads on Android—Without Rooting
Over the years, YouTube ads have become more and more integrated with the videos themselves, which means traditional Android ad blockers can no longer block the ads without blocking the videos. It's gotten to the point where the only ways to get rid of the ads are to either subscribe to Google Play Music and YouTube Red, or go through the complicated process of installing the Xposed Framework.
News: Microsoft HoloLens Makes Virtual Teleportation a Reality
Logan's Run is one of my favorite movies of all time. The dialog is cheesy, the set design and special effects are wonky, and the main villain looks like he was conceived and built by an eighth grader in shop class—oh, and his name is Box.
How To: Create a Gamertag in Google Play Games
Android's Google Play Games app has let you track your feats and accomplishments in the games you play for quite a while now, but for some, the immersion experience might be broken after you finish dominating a game only to see your regular-ass name from your Google account on the leaderboard.
Android Basics: How to View Your Location History
Your smartphone has a GPS chip inside of it that can pinpoint your location down to the nearest 4 meters, and this little device stays in your pocket or purse all day. Combine those two facts and you start to realize that your phone knows exactly where you've been during every moment that has passed since you've owned it.
How To: Fix 'Error 53' on Your Bricked iPhone
Apple has finally addressed and issued a fix for Error 53, a "safety" mechanism that would prevent your iPhone from booting if you had certain repairs done outside of Apple's official channels.
How To: Build an Evasive Shell in Python, Part 4: Testing the Shell
Welcome back, everyone. In the previous part of this rapid-fire miniseries, we built the attacker portion of the shell. In this article, we'll just be testing it to see if everything works correctly.
How To: Wake the Screen on Your Nexus 6P with a Double-Tap
Ever since developer bponury created his TouchControl app for the Galaxy Nexus back in 2011, manufacturers and modders alike have been racing to re-implement the "Double-tap-to-wake" functionality it brought to the table. We've seen LG do it with their "Knock On" feature, we've seen Motorola put a twist on it with "Active Display," and we've even seen Google implement the feature in their Nexus 9 tablet.
How To: Customize Your Android's Pull-Down Menu with Beautiful Backgrounds
Android's main UI is looking so good these days that you hardly ever see developers spend time creating themes anymore. But even with the beauty of Material Design working in our favor now, there's always room for improvement, right?
How To: Get WhatsApp's Latest Features Before Anyone Else
Getting cool new features before everyone else is just plain fun. To be on the bleeding edge can require a lot of effort at times, since the fastest way to get an update is to find it as soon as it leaks, then get to work on sideloading the new version. Luckily, there's an easier way to get the latest features on your favorite apps, with WhatsApp being no exception.
How To: Change the Default Apps Windows 10 Uses by Default
The first time you launch any type of file, Windows 10 will usually prompt you to select an app to open it with. Occasionally, though, this "Open with..." screen doesn't show up, and instead Windows will use a pre-installed system app to launch the file without ever giving you a choice in the matter.
How To: Turn Your Phone into a Lightsaber & Fight Stormtroopers
Star Wars season is definitely upon us. No matter where you turn, you can't go a day without being bombarded by merchandising and co-branding advertisements that attempt to draw a parallel between some character from a galaxy far, far away and a galactic cruiser like the Dodge Viper, or a midichlorian-laden power source like Duracell. Yep, it's kind of annoying, but at least we can get some fun out of it here and there.