Since its humble beginnings on the iPhone 4S, Siri has come a long way. While each iteration of iOS sees new features for the iPhone assistant, iOS 12 offers users some of the best advancements in Siri we've seen in a long time, not the least of which is support for Shortcuts, Apple's replacement to the Workflow app.
While most kids his age are busy playing Fortnite, 11-year-old Yumo Soerianto is developing augmented reality games. Kids like Soerianto are the future of the augmented reality field — they'll likely be coming into their own as professional developers right as AR technologies become lightweight and powerful enough to be contained in a pair of sunglasses.
Low Power Mode can go a long way in preserving your iPhone's battery life in a pinch. It can be set manually or appear as an option once your battery levels dip to 20 and 10 percent. If you have a jailbroken device, you can take Low Power Mode a step further by having it automatically turn on whenever using Do Not Disturb.
Apple's dedication to iPhone security is one of the company's biggest selling points. It's no surprise then that iOS 12 offers users a simple yet powerful way to make, save, and auto-fill strong passwords to your iCloud Keychain when creating accounts in both Safari and in apps. The best part? You hardly need to do a thing.
The long, long, loooong wait finally ended this week for the augmented reality community as the Magic Leap One was finally released. The Florida-based company has loomed over the industry for years promising something big, and now the AR cat is finally out of the bag. Now we get to see if it will live up to expectations, but early reviews are a bit skeptical.
There are nearly 100,000 unique onion service addresses online with over two million people using Tor every single day. Join me as I explore a small fraction of what the Tor network has to offer.
It looks like the Huawei P20 Pro won't be the only phone with a triple camera for much longer. Rumors indicate the upcoming LG V40 ThinQ will share the same number of cameras. And just like with dual cameras, LG is showing that there is more than one way to arrange them.
Location-based gaming pioneer Niantic has offered a preview of its augmented reality cloud platform that could change the immersive content game yet again.
On Tuesday, at the Unite Berlin developers conference, Unity unveiled new tools designed specifically for augmented reality that could literally raise the technology to the next level.
If you cover a particular area in tech long enough, you develop certain pet peeves, and one of mine happens to be devices that attempt to keep us wed to the Google Glass style of augmented reality. And while I remain mostly uninterested in such devices, one of these products recently earned my admiration and might work for you, too, under the right circumstances. It's called the Golden-i Infinity.
Between acquisitions, hirings, patent applications, and insider reports, all signs point to Apple building a smartglasses product that could ship as soon as 2020, but the company has not officially confirmed such plans.
China-based virtual reality headset maker ANTVR has decided to enter the augmented reality space, and to do so it's launching its headset on Kickstarter. The company claims that its new Mix AR device has a field of view that surpasses the Meta 2, the HoloLens, and others within a smaller form factor and at a fraction of the price. But there's a catch.
One of the better additions in the stock Android launcher is the Google Now page. Residing to the left of the home screen, this page presents a host of information based on the user's interests, which Google bases on analyzed data. Recently, the Google Now page design received a makeover which Nova Launcher users can now enjoy.
Even though smartphone audio quality has improved in recent years, the tiny built-in speakers aren't always loud enough. But if you want to turn the volume up to 11, all you need is a few household items to make a rig that will amplify your phone's speakers throughout the whole house.
It's Friday, April 6, and that means it's time to look at some of the hottest lenses from the past week created by Snapchat users everywhere. Some memes are evergreen, some dissolve within a week, but these lenses are blazing hot right now in snaps across the platform. If you don't want your friends laughing at your weak lens game, you've gotta try these out right now.
It turns out that the government of Saudi Arabia has managed to do something last month's Game Developers Conference couldn't — give us a few new glimpses of the Magic Leap One being worn by someone other than Shaq.
In the weeks following Google's AR toolkit launch last month, the availability of quality ARCore apps has been somewhat limited. That changed on Tuesday, as a flurry of new and updated apps arrived on the Play Store, including some AR experiences available exclusively on Android.
Many Samsung fans were excited when the Galaxy S9 kept the 3.5 mm headphone jack. While this is a rare delight in 2018, you also have the option for high quality audio playback over Bluetooth. When used with compatible headphones, the S9's new Bluetooth audio codecs can greatly improve audio quality.
Huawei's push into the US market has by no means stopped, even despite the recent US government pushback. Huawei has already released their top-notch flagship device from 2017, the Mate 10 Pro, and a couple great budget and midrange devices. Their latest release offers an upgrade to a past release.
Not content to just be a provider of rugged smartglasses for enterprise users, DAQRI has made the jump into the AR software side of the industry with its new Worksense productivity suite.
During the unveiling of its content partnership with the NBA, Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz, with an assist from former player/current pitchman Shaquille O'Neal, described at least one of the ways fans would be able to experience sports using the augmented reality device.
In 2017, after purchasing a majority of the 600 MHz frequency, T-Mobile began a massive rollout of the new LTE Bands across the US. However, there are currently only two devices that support the frequency, also known as LTE Band 71. Thanks to a recent FCC listing, we've learned this number will double when the Galaxy S9 and S9+ debut next month.
This week, saw two companies leaning on AR to prop up their financial futures. On one hand, Apple made quite a bit of AR-related news ahead of its quarterly earnings report next week. On the other hand, Vuzix launched a pre-order program for its Blade smartglasses and closed the largest financing deal in the company's history to fuel its ongoing headset production.
A while back, we told you about NoChromo, a no-root ad-blocking browser based on Google Chrome's open source code base, Chromium. That browser was wildly successful, as it offered an identical interface to regular Chrome, but without any ads. Sadly, the developer abandoned NoChromo, but a new ad-blocking Chromium port called Bromite has been released to fill its void.
It would be difficult to discuss the business of augmented reality without acknowledging the annual tech meat market of CES.
Augmented reality hardware maker Vuzix came to the rescue of a vision-impaired student in Pennsylvania today by delivering a pair of Vuzix M300 Smart Glasses to enhance her eyesight.
Transparent display maker Lumus has reached a deal to license its augmented reality optical engine models to Quanta Computers for mass production of displays for consumer smartglasses.
Virtual reality headsets aren't new, but they may be something you or someone on your holiday shopping list hasn't experienced yet. If you're going to dive into the world of smartphone-based virtual reality, the best time to do it is during Black Friday when all the good sales are going on.
Up until now, experiencing augmented reality through Vuzix's next-generation Blade 3000 smartglasses would have required a trip to a tech conference where the company has an exhibition booth.
We may have to wait a few years before they arrive, but reports of Apple's headset taking shape in Cupertino gives the tech world hope that its white knight for consumer AR is on its way.
In case you didn't already know, augmented reality is here. It's no longer just an idea in a cyberpunk novel. And while augmented reality has been around for a long time, the actual technology is finally catching up to the idea.
After announcing another massive round of funding to the tune of $502 million, Magic Leap is adding another powerful weapon to its creative arsenal: John Gaeta, the man who helped develop the iconic Bullet Time effect for The Matrix series of films.
You can bet Thor costumes will be prominent among the superheroes seen this Oct. 31. Since the summer, there has been no shortage of coverage for Thor: Ragnarok, and the timing of its November release couldn't be better as a tie-in with the cosplaying holiday known as Halloween. This year, the success of pulling off the Thor costume will rely on how well your new Thor helmet looks, which as it happens, you can DIY at home, using a few simple supplies and perhaps a trip or two to the craft and...
Due to the overnight success of smartphones, millions of people are connecting with others. Currently, over 15 million text messages are sent every minute worldwide. Most of this communication is happening in the open where any hacker can intercept and share in the discussion unbeknownst to the participants. However, we don't need to communicate insecurely.
With so many Chromecast-powered devices available, chances are, you're near something with casting abilities right now. Whether it's Android TV, Google Home, or any one of the various gadgets with Chromecast built-in, you can use a more powerful speaker to play media from your smartphone. The only caveat is that the app you're streaming from needs to support Google Cast, but thankfully, Tidal does.
Over the years, Kodi (formerly XBMC) has become one of the most popular media players. It provides all the essential functionality needed for any home theater setup while remaining open source and free. However, Kodi is not limited to just your living room. With the Kodi app for iOS or Android, you get a streaming media player that can act as a video player, music player, picture gallery, and so much more.
Back in 2009, largely due to the sheer number of users demanding it, Spotify added an amazing little feature — the ability to disable volume normalization. While the feature is nothing more than a toggle on the visual front, the audible difference is far superior and moons apart.
Over the past week, we are seeing more companies capitalizing on services leveraging augmented reality. One company secured funding to expand their service, while two other companies grow its own services through acquisition.
This week's Brief Reality is led by a pair of stories with an eye to the future of the augmented reality industry, first in terms of standards for the industry, then with regards to its future applications in the automotive realm. Finally, one company looks to boost its future sales with an executive hire.
Amazon's first venture into the wireless phone market was a crash and burn moment — and that's us being kind. Their FirePhone went down in flames almost instantly, no pun intended.
