Not that long ago I wrote an article discussing what it would be like, realistically, if you were to accidentally travel back in time to the Victorian era. At the end of that article, I mentioned that the best thing you could bring with you on a time-traveling adventure is a Kindle, or similar e-reader, stuffed full of the knowledge of the 21st century. Why a Kindle? Well, I own a Kindle, and I love it. However, there's far more to it than that.
One of the roles our government has taken on is to provide us with information to be used in making decisions.
While putting content and information online gets easier every day, it seems like getting it back is only getting harder. In a lot of cases (we're looking at you, Facebook), once you upload something, it's forever in the hands of someone else. That's where The Data Liberation Front comes in. Believe it or not, The Data Liberation Front is a team of Google engineers who work to make it easier for users to take their stuff back whenever they feel like it.
Hey guys, I was building my floating island earlier today (and having a quick look at the competition) and I came up with a couple of hints and tips that will really improve your islands.
Thanks to Flutter, it's now possible to control the music on your computer simply by making a few hand gestures. The app is available for both Windows and Mac and uses your computer's webcam to monitor your hand movements. Through the use of a few simple hand movements, you can play, pause, forward or replay your music. Flutter works with iTunes, Spotify, Quicktime, MPlayerX and a few other programs.
Windows 8 has been reimagined to take full advantage of touchscreen devices as the "future" of computing. A few years ago, touchscreen devices were super buggy and only played well with smartphones, but with the advent of the iPad and a ton of other tablets, touchscreen capabilities have spread to full-sized desktops and even televisions.
Sea otters are the largest members of the weasel family. When people started hunting sea otters for their fur, their population fell from roughly 225,000 to about 1,500, until the International Fur Seal Treaty took effect in 1911. Since the international ban on otter hunting, the population has rebounded back to roughly 107,000.
For this project, I decided to rip apart a microwave I found in my neighbor's garbage can to see what was inside. With permission, of course! True story!
Admit it—at some point or another, you've wished that you had your own personal hovercraft. Don't worry, we've all been there. Well, a company called Aerofex wants to make a hovercraft that's way more than your standard leaf-blower-powered one, taking a queue from the swoop and speeder bikes from the Star Wars franchise, building their own sort of repulsorlift. This hover bike may not be quite as fast as the ones from Star Wars, but if the company has its way, it could be on sale by the end o...
Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy has been one of the most successful film series of all time, so it comes as no surprise that everyone wants their own real-life versions of the Dark Knight's gadgets and vehicles.
We've all played with bubbles as kids, but I think most would agree that they're not exactly the most functional of objects. An international team of researchers made up of Yoichi Ochiai, Alexis Oyama and Keisuke Toyoshima wants to change that. They've figured out how to project both 2D and 3D images onto a micro membrane (soap bubble) using ultrasonic sound waves and a standard projector. The bubble is made of a solution of sugar, glycerin, soap, surfactant, water and milk. The glycerin and ...
Motorola launched a new webpage on Friday that tells Android users how to unlock the bootloaders on a limited number of new Motorola smartphones and tablets. This new 'Unlock My Device' page helps demystify the process and make it easier for users to customize their phones.
Dropbox announced Tuesday that a recent security breach compromised a list that included the email addresses of certain Dropbox users. To avoid future complications, the service announced that it would be implementing two-factor authentication, and even more useful, a security page that lets you monitor all activity on your account. In light of this and other recent web security threats, you might also want to know that services like Gmail, Facebook, and Yahoo! Mail have similar pages where y...
Stereoblindness is an extremely unfortunate condition where someone cannot perceive depth correctly. Bruce Bridgeman was one such individual, having an eye condition which prevented him from developing functioning binocular vision. In essence, he was living in a "flat" world.
In the Xbox 360 game Darksiders, you're nearing the end of the game when you get to the Black Throne, which consists of three guardians and Straga. Proceed across the bridge as it constructs itself then enter the main room of the Black Throne. Here you will find Azrael who will tell you about Straga and how he gains great power from the Well of Souls. You will need to defeat the three Guardians that protect the Well of Souls and use their power to destroy the three statues that imprison Azrae...
This is the end of the Xbox 360 game Darksiders. It's the last level, the last quest, your last mission… the Destroyer. You'll need to summon Ruin to stand a chance against the Destroyer. Hold the Focus button to target lock onto the creature so you can keep in in view as you move around. The idea is for you to ride in close enough to the dragon and slash it with your Armageddon Blade. Watch out when you see the Destroyer's front claws glow red as this means he's coming to slash at you. Eithe...
Defeating the Ashland level of Darksiders on the Xbox 360 means getting past Tower A, Tower B, Tower C, Tower D, The Caverns, The Ash Field, Fracture Cannon, The Arena, Abyssal Gladiator, Leviathan's Drift, Stygian and lastly… the Soul Bridge. Before you lies an ash field. This ash is to thin for you to Dash in and makes moving around in it difficult. On top of that, a giant sand worm or Ash Titan, roams around freely. This massive creature will home in War as soon as he touches the ash groun...
In the Xbox 360 game Darksiders, you'll eventually have to play the Iron Canopy level, which consists of The Seesaw, Webbed Floor, Two Lifts 1 Bomb, Loom Wardens, Broodmother, Silitha and Return Silitha's Heart. War will be ambushed and captured as he enters the Iron Canopy. When he comes to, you'll find him hanging from a spider web. Tap the Action button to break free. Make your way around to the left to discover a Soul Chest in hidden nook behind your starting location. Now cross the webbe...
There's plenty of action on this level of the Xbox 360 game Darksiders. In the Hollows, there's Gas Mains, Tremor Gauntlet, Three Platform Room, Turntables, Pump Room, Griever, and Chronomancer. You enter way looks to have once been a train station. As you approach the Redemption lying on the ground you'll be ambushed by the Griever. Quickly pick up Redemption and begin to alternate between rapid fire shots and charge shots. You need to aim for the blue glowing belly of the monster. Dash arou...
Learn how to follow proper netiquette rules. You may be a model of decorum in person, but a bonehead online. Check out how much you know about Internet manners.
If the importance of augmented reality and VR hardware to Facebook's future wasn't already clear enough, a shake-up in the executive ranks at the company has made it as clear as smartglasses lenses.
The Apple rumor mill never stops churning and when it comes to augmented reality smartglasses, the chatter has been particularly hot in recent months.
Apple seeded developers the second iOS 14.6 beta today, Friday, April 30. The update (build number 18F5055b) comes four days after the launch of iOS 14.5, which introduced over 60 new features and changes to iPhone, and eight days after the first 14.6 beta hit developers' iPhones.
Facebook's annual earnings call on Wednesday didn't come with any big surprises, that is, if you took everything at face value.
Over the past three years, Epic Games has raised billions of dollars in funding on the success of Fortnite as well as Unreal Engine, one of the top 3D engines available for developing games and AR experiences.
As if teasing its own smartglasses weren't enough, augmented reality gaming developer Niantic gave gamers a glimpse of how 5G speeds can revolutionize how they play mobile games in the near future.
Like the layers of an onion, 2021 continues to peel back new hints of Apple's kinda-secretive augmented reality device development.
We often discuss the augmented reality efforts coming from the biggest players in Silicon Valley like Google, Facebook, Apple, and others, but one name that keeps coming up when you really begin to dig into the AR space is Vuzix. Since the late '90s, the company has quietly but deliberately worked to build itself into a viable competitor in the enterprise space via its wearable display technology.
We've been so worried about volumetric scans possibly robbing celebrities and performers of their agency and right to control their image that, somewhere along the way, we forgot that scans may not always be necessary to produce passable holographic performances.
Spam calls are one of the most annoying things to happen in the world of smartphones for more than one reason. Not only are they bothersome, but they can also be dangerous to people who don't know any better. Google has come up with a crafty solution known as "Call Screen" to let the Google Assistant handle the call for you while you listen in on the caller like a stealth ninja.
Despite the fact that over 600,000 Snap Lens filters have been created since Lens Studio debuted in 2017, and Facebook is reporting that more than a billion users have interacted with its Spark AR filters across Facebook properties, social augmented reality filters get a bad rap in the AR industry.
The landscape of the augmented reality space is broad, diverse, and constantly shifting, perhaps more so than any other vertical in technology. At the same time, major players are attempting to standardize various hardware designs and delivery methods, while still others are rushing to claim their piece of virtual property through AR clouds and application stores.
If you've ever spent any serious time examining the Chinese tech startup world, you know that it moves fast — very fast. The tech startups hailing from Beijing and Shenzhen are moving so fast that they're now in serious competition with Silicon Valley.
The year 2018 was a rough one for Snap, the company behind the Snapchat app and the Spectacles wearable camera device. From executive departures to reports of slowed user growth, the company that once spurned Facebook's multibillion-dollar advances is now facing a moment of truth as it stares down its uncertain future.
Mystery is a tricky thing. Used correctly, it can give onlookers the impression that wondrous and perhaps valuable things are afoot. However, once the veil of suspension of disbelief is removed in any significant way, that same mystery can quickly turn into not just skepticism, but outright anger at what may have seemed like an attempt to dupe trusting onlookers.
This week, Next Reality released the fifth and final set of profiles on the NR30 leaders in augmented reality, with this chapter focusing on the influencers in the industry.
It is almost indisputable that smartglasses and head-worn displays are the future of augmented reality. However, at this precise moment, they are still a very niche market.
Because augmented reality is still so new to so many people, there are a number of would-be experts opining online, often repeating basic facts anyone with a spare 15 minutes can find on their own. That's why it's important to point out when someone delivers what could be considered the ultimate cheat sheet for ramping up your AR IQ if you're unfamiliar with the finer points of the space.
Despite their sometimes fluffy reputations and occasionally ethically compromised viewpoints, tech evangelists are important, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. The right passionate voice behind the right technology platform or piece of hardware can sometimes spell the difference between fostering a community of potential users and watching a product die on the vine.
Apple demonstrated their continued interest and investment into the awesome world of augmented reality during their Sept. 12 event, highlighting a few new AR games that will appear on iPhones thanks to ARKit. But that's not all you can expect — as long as you have an iPhone with an A9 chip or later, there will be a ton of cool new AR tools, games, and other apps to play around from the App Store.
