Ever since Microsoft sunset Windows Phone, they've been working with Android to tap into the growing mobile device market. The tech giant has uploaded over 80 apps to the Play Store for any Android user to download, but some features Samsung has hoarded for themselves.
Data is king. Nearly every carrier and MVNO offers unlimited talk and text with their cellular plans. Where they differ is the amount of data available, so that's the part that can save or cost you the most money.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus has practically guaranteed that the virus, along with the phrases "social distancing" and "flattening the curve," will rank among the top search terms of 2020. USA Today combined the phrases in its latest augmented reality experience, which quizzes your knowledge in the best practices of social distancing.
Google recently released a new mesh router known as Nest Wifi. The updated and rebranded Google Wifi brought many improvements, such as faster processing power and an increased level of wireless security called WPA3. But while it's not enabled by default, you can still get the new WPA3 security on your original Google Wifi.
After more than two years of teasing, augmented reality startup Mojo Vision has confirmed that "invisible computing" means what we've suspected all along.
Stadia is a lot like an Xbox or PS4, except there's no console — the games just stream from Google's servers to your phone, computer, or TV. But Stadia is limited to Pixel phones for right now, and when Google does expand support, it will still only be for select phones. Thankfully, there's a workaround for that if you're rooted.
It seems like all tech companies want to know where we are. Even Apple and Google have been caught abusing their location access on iOS and Android. Luckily, there are apps that can trick your phone into thinking it's somewhere it's not.
In a time where we're more connected than ever, privacy and security have never been more important. Maybe you're not concerned, but I'm sure there's someone in your life who is, and shopping for them can be daunting. However, with these gifts, you can provide them the tools they need to enhance their protection.
Apple's ARKit has built a considerable lead in terms of features over Google's ARCore, but Google's latest update to ARCore adds a capability that makes the platform a bit more competitive with ARKit.
Not that long ago, touchscreen-friendly gloves were an outlier accessory, something you had to track down at a specialty brick-and-mortar store or solely online. But as the smartphone has become an integral part of our lives, so, too, has the need for fashion accessories that cater to our desire to be always connected. So now, touchscreen gloves are everywhere.
With MP3 players all but dead, phones are now the dominant portable music devices. While smartphones have gotten better at this task over the years, they do have some glaring limitations when it comes to music. On the bright side, we can use these limitations to help find the perfect gifts for the audiophiles in our lives.
It's no secret that Samsung is working on augmented reality hardware, as the company has been candid about its intentions. However, what we don't know is exactly how many AR projects the company is working on, as patent filings and reports revealed two more over the past week.
Move over, Star Wars. You're not the only Disney property that can play in the Lenovo Mirage AR headset anymore.
The streaming content vision from Magic Leap recently underwent a quiet but major update, courtesy of AT&T.
|Choose Your View: Quick Bullet Points | Detailed Descriptions Android's newest major update is a special one — it's the tenth full version of the world's most commonly used operating system. The latest release, dubbed simply Android 10 (codename Android Q), was first showcased as a beta back in March 2019, so we've been digging around in it for several months. There's one dramatic visual change, plus there are a lot of goodies in general.
For years, Samsung has been behind the curve when it comes to fast charging. Up to the Galaxy S10, most of their phones used the very slow Adaptive Fast Charging system. Whether it was the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco or some other reason, Samsung has been reluctant to push the charging envelope. Until now.
Unlike many other OEMs, Samsung has two prolific phone series they release each year, the Galaxy S series and Galaxy Note series. At first, the latter was the bleeding edge of technology, but in recent years, the line has been blurred. So what do you get with the Note 10+ over the S10+ besides a stylus? Let us compare.
When the Steam Link app was first introduced in 2018, I was impressed. As long as you were on the same network as your PC, you could play your Steam games on your phone. But now, it's even more impressive. By enabling a few extra settings, you can play your Steam library on mobile data anywhere in the world.
Long before the HoloLens or the Magic Leap One, a California-based team of independent filmmakers envisioned what the future of augmented reality might look like.
When it comes to augmented reality (AR) on Android, you might be wondering how you can get those cool new games and apps on your unsupported phone. Google has an officially supported device list for its ARCore platform, which usually consists of the more modern devices. You won't find very many older devices on the list for a reason, but that doesn't mean your "old" phone can't use ARCore still.
While a viable version of consumer-grade smartglasses has yet to find mainstream success, two more contenders emerged this week, as Vuzix confirmed that a leak of a fashion-forward design is legitmate and Vivo introduced tethered smartglasses designed to pair with its new 5G smartphone.
Having already solved for functionality and form factor, Nreal appears poised to pull ahead of its consumer smartglasses competition as the third piece of the puzzle now falls into place.
Now that Microsoft has squarely focused on the enterprise market with the HoloLens 2, it appears Lenovo is content to play follow-the-leader with its new augmented reality headset.
If cameras are a priority, one of the first specs to check on a new phone is the image stabilization. You've probably been told optical image stabilization (OIS) reigns supreme, but this isn't the case if you're taking a lot of videos. Instead, we would argue, electronic image stabilization (EIS) actually works better for video.
When shooting video on your phone, you have two cameras at your disposal, the rear camera and the selfie camera, and you can switch freely between the two. As for microphones, you may have more than one but, unlike with the cameras, it's not easy to switch between them. Filmic Pro solves this problem by isolating the mics so you can choose the best option for the audio track.
Filmic Pro harnesses the full native power of your iPhone or Android phone — and then some. If your smartphone shoots in 4K resolution, Filmic Pro will let you choose that resolution. However, it's not all about the pixels — bit rate is an essential factor in determining the overall quality of your 720p, 1080p, or 4K video, something Filmic Pro gives you full control over.
Smartphones and dark mode go hand in hand. Screens can be bright, causing eye strain and battery drain, and dark mode can take the edge off both. It's perfect for nighttime browsing, but also for general use, especially on OLED displays with inky blacks. Dark mode, aka night mode, is particularly great for tweeting, and Twitter makes it easy to switch.
Your social security number, credit card information, and medical history can fall into the wrong hands if you're not careful about how and where you share your data online. If you really care about your data, there are tools and techniques you can utilize to protect yourself from cyberstalkers, advertisers, and hackers in a time when digital lives are a high commodity.
Now that we've officially seen the HoloLens 2 and Microsoft has shown off the improvements and new superpowers of the augmented reality headset, what about the specs?
Owning digital movies has many advantages over physical discs, such as easy access and a variety of online stores you can turn to for good deals. There's Prime Video, iTunes, Vudu, and the list goes on. However, this leads to fragmented video libraries, unlike DVDs and Blu-rays which can be stored together. Surprisingly, YouTube is one app that can help consolidate your collection online.
The augmented reality industry has a bright future built on innovation and growth, but that doesn't mean we can't look back at the close of the year to see what the industry has accomplished from a business perspective.
With more and more phones using OLED displays, the need for dark mode is at the highest it's ever been. Since dark backgrounds reduce battery consumption on these displays, the Android community has been begging Google to include a system-wide dark mode. Instead, Google gave us dark mode for many of their apps, including the Phone app.
Living in this age of smartphones and always being connected can sometimes have us getting carried away with our devices. Whether it's an addiction to our phone or if we just feel like cutting back on some daily screen time, there's a great tool that can help with that — Google's official Digital Wellbeing app puts you in control by laying out all the stats you need to help curb your daily smartphone habits.
Update February 25: The new Sony Xperia flagship has been announced, and it has a new name: The Sony Xperia 1. You can read all of the official specs and details at our full article on Sony's new model.
The North remembers...that smartglasses are the future! Game of Thrones jokes aside, the smartglasses startup opened its doors, and we visited its Brooklyn store to get our hands the consumer-focused Focals smartglasses.
Haptic feedback and vibration of our smartphones have come a long way in recent years. These features are much more premium now than they once were, but most users are still unable to adjust the intensity for notifications or phone calls. Most higher-end devices make less noise on surfaces than in the past, but adjusting these values can still come in handy even today.
The dream of Google Glass lives on via North's stylish and normal-looking smartglasses that bring text messages and navigation prompts into the user's field of view and Amazon Alexa integration for voice-activated assistance.
This week, Next Reality published profiles on the leaders in augmented reality hardware industry, with Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz topping the list. So, it should be no surprise that two app makers want to align themselves with Magic Leap's flagship product.
It wasn't Christmas, but for Amazon Prime members, it was darn close: Amazon Prime Day, one of the biggest shopping days of the year, came and went earlier this week. Unfortunately, there weren't many Prime Day-specific deals to be had for augmented reality fans, but that doesn't mean AR-loving Amazon Prime members were completely left out.
Extra hardware buttons have become a trend with smartphones lately. Often, these are unmodifiable buttons designed to launch a voice assistant. That isn't the case with the BlackBerry KEY2. Making a return from the KEYone is the Convenience Key, which also received an upgrade.
