There's no such thing as a perfect Android keyboard. Some, like Swype, have gesture typing down to a science, but lack in predictive technology. SwiftKey, on the other hand, boasts awesome next-word prediction, but less than stellar gesture typing. Many others are optimized for multiple languages, space saving, or emojis, but none are without their flaws.
Yes, "Safer Internet Day" is a real thing, and it's actually been around for 12 years. This year, Google again will be commemorating the event by giving away a 2-gigabyte storage bump for their Google Drive cloud service if you simply run through a security checkup.
We use our smart devices for pretty much everything these days, from getting directions to playing games just to kill time. They're extremely important to our daily routine, and as we use our devices more and more, things get a little bit messy.
Whether you're a serious, sweating athlete or just need to recover after a night of drinking, chances are you've replenished your body's fluids with a sports drink at some point. Those electrolytes aren't the only thing entering your systems, though. Sports drinks are sugary, sweet, and loaded with calories—but there's a way you can still recharge your body without ingesting the unhealthy additives.
Android's beauty is in its customization; you can have widgets for anything, launchers that look and feel completely different from one another, and fonts you can change at any time. And it doesn't stop at aesthetics—you can go much deeper than looks.
OnePlus One's CyanogenMod firmware comes packed with personalization options that standard Android devices could only achieve with root-level access. By simply entering the Settings app, OPO owners can make changes to their lock screen, status bar, and notification drawer, as well as apply themes and gestures to make their device a little more customized.
One of the more talked-about features of Android Lollipop is a new Priority Mode that allows you to mute all notifications except for those coming from starred contacts. As simple as that sounds, this can still be a bit confusing—or at least lead to some unwanted interruptions.
Android 5.0 has a cool new feature called Priority Mode that allows you to silence your phone's ringer except for when certain people call you. It's something you'd enable right before bedtime, for instance, if you don't want to be disturbed unless it's someone important trying to reach you.
One of the Note 3's best features is Multi Window mode, which allows users to display more than one app on the screen at the same time, taking advantage of the large and high-resolution display.
At $349 off contract, the Nexus 5 has always been one of the best bang-for-your-buck smartphones on the market. In order to keep the price that low, however, Google had to pass up on some of the minor features that other flagship phones offer.
If you're like me, things just seem to look better when they're symmetrical. While Android's status bar icons are indeed weighted against the notifications that show up on the left side of this area, the balance still seems skewed to the right.
There were over 1.2 million changes made to Android when the OS got updated from KitKat to Lollipop, but a minor front-facing modification has many users in an uproar.
Social media is constantly evolving, and as a result, we're now capable of sharing much more than we were even just a few years ago. Television, on the other hand, continues to hold strong as one of America's favorite pastimes.
Ever wanted to communicate with another driver on the road, but just didn't know how? Sure, you could flag them down by waving or honking at them, but that assumes that they're in close proximity, that you have a unobscured path, and that they're paying attention. And if you're in a fit of road rage, flagging them down probably isn't the best idea for either of you.
Practically every kid in the '80s would rush home after school to put in some time on the first-gen Nintendo before their parents got home. Games like Super Mario Bros. and Super Smash Bros. were synonymous with fun times, and to this day, call up a wave of nostalgia amongst Generation-Xers.
I think it's safe to assume that most of us appreciate a little privacy and security when it comes to our mobile devices, which is exactly why we have lock screens that require unique passwords, patterns, or PINs. Although someone can discretely peer over your shoulder to see what your password is, it's much more difficult for them to duplicate your face to unlock the device.
Math homework isn't the easiest thing to get through quickly, no matter how prepared you are. Knowing your stuff simply won't cut it. Going through dozens of equations in one sitting could take up hours of your time. Even when you finish, there's always going to be that one problem you couldn't solve, which could take hours itself to finally get right.
Whether if it's to play games or watch Netflix or YouTube, children love using our smartphones and tablets. As an uncle of many, I don't mind my nieces and nephews using my gear, but I do mind them opening apps they have no business being in, like my photo gallery or messaging app.
Without much notice, Spotify launched Desktop Open Beta a few weeks ago, a program that allows anyone to download, test out, and provide feedback on the latest beta version of their desktop application for Mac and Windows.
Trust can be a touchy subject in general, and is often required when sharing personal information—especially so when handing our phones over to others. You may not have a ton of secret or nefarious information on your device, but that doesn't mean you want your mom or snoopy coworker having easy access to your messages or Facebook app.
The Galaxy S5's camera is amongst the most capable smartphone shooters on the market. With a 16-megapixel sensor that is capable of recording 1080p video at 120 frames per second, the stat sheet was officially stuffed when Samsung brought this device to market.
With hundreds of pictures accumulating on my device, it's a daunting task to devote time to sorting through which are worth keeping and which I should discard. Not all of the images on my device are winners, so the losers not only take up space, they make it difficult to find the good ones as I wade through the crap.
It's been a long-awaited feature since being announced at Google I/O in June, but Backdrop for Chromecast has finally started rolling out. With an update to the Chromecast app for Android and iOS, users will be able to personalize the background images that appear when Chromecast is idle.
I'm sure you've been there—halfway through typing something out, you realize that one word you've been using more than any other has been misspelled. Perhaps it's a single word, acronym, or line of code that you find yourself typing quite often at work, but this one requires complicated hand gymnastics that you'd simply rather not perform over and over again.
How many times have you witnessed a beautiful moment that you would have loved to capture on film, only to watch it slip away as you struggled to unlock your phone and open your camera app?
In the past few weeks, the internet has been abuzz with nightmarish horror stories of Comcast's questionable decision-making and downright terrible customer service. The central theme of many of these disputes with the nation's largest cable provider is that without evidence, the conglomerate will refuse to acknowledge its mistake and place the burden of proof on the customer.
Even with the highest-tiered data plan available, there are times that your phone or your carrier might downgrade your connection to 3G or even lower. This usually occurs when you've made a phone call, or you've switched cell towers while traveling.
Apps that save your passwords have been around for quite a long while. But apps that complete the entire login process automatically? Now that's a different story.
Stock Android has come with lock screen widget support for a couple of years now, ever since the days of the first Ice Cream Sandwich build. But for some reason, Samsung decided to remove this feature in the Galaxy S5.
Want to learn how to make Peppa Pig with Play-Doh? Here is our attempt on showcasing a tutorial on how to make Peppa Pig with Play-Doh.
Welcome back, my aspiring hackers! In previous tutorials, I have shown you how to scan the globe for vulnerable servers and write simple scripts in BASH and Perl to perform other reconnaissance tasks. In a very recent guide, I taught how to scan vulnerable servers for Heartbleed.
Whether it's bad timing, or some trying-to-be-funny photobomber, it sucks having a photo ruined by someone or something getting in the way. While you can always retake the photo, it's simply impossible to capture the moment you intended, no matter how much restaging you do. But with an HTC One, there's no need to retake anything, as we have access to built-in features that will remove those photo intruders.
Transparent status bars and new lock screens weren't the only new additions that came with the Galaxy S3 KitKat update. Along with better battery life and a smoother user experience, we got a new toggles design and recent apps menu. Of course, Samsung's infinite wisdom left these two aesthetic features hidden away. Luckily, with root, you can easily enable them with just a few quick edits.
Let's say you're watching a video and everything's going great, but you feel the need to raise the volume a tiny bit. You hit the volume button on your Nexus 5, and all of a sudden, a giant volume slider appears that obscures half of your video for 3 seconds.
Figuring out someone's password, pattern, or PIN isn't very difficult—simply watching over their shoulder or following the oil marks left across their screen is enough to figure them out and bypass whatever lock screen security they have.
If you lend someone your phone, even if it's just for a second, there's a chance they can enter an app and see something you'd rather they didn't. Whether it's a personal email or a private photo, there are plenty of reasons why you'd want to keep snoops out of certain apps.
Accessing notifications and quick settings from the lock screen just makes things move quicker and more efficiently, unless of course we're using a secure lock screen. It makes sense that if we have face, pattern, or pin security enabled, we may not want notifications accessible, but really, that should be something we decide for ourselves—and now we can.
Notifications, while certainly helpful, can at times be overbearing. There are banners plastered every which way on your smartphone for almost every application. While many of the notifications can simply be swept away or turned off, the same can't be said of persistent notifications.
You can easily lock any folder on your Windows computer with a simple Notepad hack. By creating a batch file, you can hide a folder and require a password be entered before it becomes visible and accessible. This is a great tool for locking sensitive information, like pictures, financial statements, and a lot more.
Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers! Recently, I asked the Null Byte community what subject they would most like me to cover in future tutorials. Many of you cited scripting, and I decided it's best to cover this subject soon, so here goes.
