There's a new trend on Instagram Stories: People are making viral AR filters where images of popular characters from TV shows, movies, and other mediums shuffle above your head until one sticks. The filters range from Disney and Pokémon characters to Harry Potter and Friends, but you're not limited to just that because you can create your own "which are you?" filter.
If we were to assign a theme for the 2019 edition of the Next Reality 30 (NR30), it might be something along the lines of, "What have you done for me lately?"
Apple's iOS 13 has been available for beta testing since June, and the stable release pushed out to everyone on Thursday, Sept. 19. To help you make the most out of iOS 13 for iPhone, we've rounded up everything you'll want to know, whether a colossal feature, small settings change, interface update, or hidden improvement.
OnePlus, whose phones always challenge for the title of best spec-to-price ratio, releases two main devices every year. There's the primary flagship in late spring, then an iterative update with the "T" suffix in fall. Typically, there's not much difference between the two, but this year, OnePlus is mixing up the formula a bit.
Mobile gaming has exploded in recent years, with experts predicting 2.4 billion global mobile players by the end of 2019. It already accounts for 47% of the worldwide gaming market, besting console and PC. No wonder we've seen the rise of gaming smartphones, a class of phones that specialize in mobile gaming.
Phones these days are expensive. The iPhone 11 Pro is presumed to start at $999, following the iPhone XS and iPhone X's leads. One way to bring down that cost is to trade in your old iPhone, but there isn't one clear-cut way to do that. You could trade your iPhone into a participating website or put yourself out there and sell the iPhone on your own. It's all about what's best for you.
Typography is an important aspect of the video editing process. You deal with it when adding captions to news clips, giving on-screen recipes in food videos, creating burned-in subtitles for short films, making no-sound-needed videos for social media, and so much more. Enlight Videoleap for iOS makes this all easy.
I noticed the neon yellow sign at the new location of Pho Bar in Chinatown right away. The sweeping cursive yellow letters spell out "Crazy Rich Broth"; the same phrase printed on the back of servers' shirts. It's the kind of minimalist but colorful design feature that is especially popular on Instagram at the moment — shots of patrons in front of a glowing sign.
With the list of available mobile apps for moviegoers constantly expanding and improving, seeing a film at your local theater has never been better. With the right apps for your iPhone or Android phone, you can research movies, find out if showings are sold out, reserve seats, save money on tickets and concessions, preorder popcorn and soda, and even find dull bathroom-worthy scenes.
For many, phones are starting to replace televisions as the primary device for watching videos. Thanks to their portability and easy to use apps, it's often simpler to watch Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, or Prime Instant Video on the smaller screen. But not every phone is suited to fit this need, so we did some testing to find the best of the best when it comes to streaming videos.
If you've grown bored of day-to-day hacking and need a new toy to experiment with, we've compiled a list of gadgets to help you take password cracking and wireless hacking to the next level. If you're not a white hat or pentester yourself but have one to shop for, whether for a birthday, Christmas present, or other gift-giving reason, these also make great gift ideas.
The "controversial" Pixel. No phone in the history of Google's Pixel lineup deserves this title more than the Pixel 3 XL. For some (including myself), the design is a welcome change that embodies the modern design of 2018 flagship phones. For others, it has an ugly huge display notch that destroys symmetry.
Let's say you want to download an Instagram video to your iPhone. What do you do? While Instagram doesn't offer an official solution, there are backchannel methods that exist to get the job done. However, if you want native support for downloading Instagram videos directly to your Photos app, you can start by updating your iPhone to iOS 12 and installing Shortcuts.
Welcome to the first annual Next Reality 30, our list of people who've made the biggest impact on the augmented reality space in the last 12 months — and what a 12-month roller-coaster ride it's been. Apple introduced ARKit-powered apps last fall, Google launched ARCore for Android soon after, Snapchat began monetizing AR, and the Magic Leap One headset finally came out. These are historic times.
If you're on the hunt for a profitable side-gig, or even a completely new way to to make money, you'll want to take a look at Upwork, a leading freelancing platform that connects skilled freelancers with clients from all over the world.
They're finally here — Samsung has officially revealed the Galaxy S9 and S9+, which run Android Oreo out of the box. Since we've spent plenty of time with the Oreo beta for the Galaxy S8, we already know about some of the best new software features coming to the Galaxy S9. Like previous updates, Samsung has enhanced its software with a fresh look and brand new functionality.
The internet is constantly under siege by bots searching for vulnerabilities to attack and exploit. While conventional wisdom is to prevent these attacks, there are ways to deliberately lure hackers into a trap in order to spy on them, study their behavior, and capture samples of malware. In this tutorial, we'll be creating a Cowrie honeypot, an alluring target to attract and trap hackers.
Being able to write your own hacking tools is what separates the script kiddies from the legendary hackers. While this can take many forms, one of the most coveted skills in hacking is the ability to dig through the binary files of a program and identify vulnerabilities at the lowest level. This is referred to as binary exploitation, and today we're going to check out a tool known as Protostar.
An attacker with shell access to a Linux server can manipulate, or perhaps even ruin, anything they have access to. While many more subtle attacks could provide significant value to a hacker, most attacks also leave traces. These traces, of course, can also be manipulated and avoided through methods such as shell scripting.
Samsung has finally rolled out the Android Oreo update for the Galaxy S8 and S8+. If you're just now getting the update, you'll be happy to know that your Galaxy just got upgraded with plenty of cool new features. Like previous updates, Samsung has improved upon its software by including a new look and new functionality.
There's no denying that there are some seriously useful new features in iOS 11 for iPhone. But there's also no denying that Apple got a few things wrong with the latest iOS update, as well as left a few important features out.
Equifax reported on Sept. 7 that it discovered a breach on July 29 which affects roughly half of Americans, many of whom don't realize they have dealings with the company. Hackers got away with social security numbers, addresses, and driver's license numbers, foreshadowing a "nuclear explosion of identity theft." Let's explore what really happened and what you and those around you can do to protect yourselves.
Welcome back, my fledgling hackers! Hacking has a long and storied history in the U.S. and around the world. It did not begin yesterday, or even at the advent of the 21st century, but rather dates back at least 40 years. Of course, once the internet migrated to commercial use in the 1990s, hacking went into hyperdrive.
Whether scheduling meetings, events, tasks, or even keeping tabs on the weather, a good digital calendar can help you stay on top of your game in ways that a normal calendar could never do. Indeed, there are many calendars to choose from, but Google Calendar is one of the best due to Google's excellent cloud service, feature-rich web-client, and their easy-to-use Android and iOS applications.
This year, like every year before it, Black Friday sales are starting earlier than ever. A lot of stores will be opening their doors as early as 5pm on Thanksgiving to get a head start on the madness (and it really is madness). As we've discussed in the past, one of the keys to emerging victorious on Black Friday is to plan, plan, plan. So, we've compiled some of the best deals in tech, gadgets and appliances to help you prepare for battle.
The first film I saw without any parental supervision was Pokémon: The First Movie. At the time, there wasn't a 5th grader around who didn't know who Pikachu was or what Pokémon was all about. The franchise was one of the most popular video games of all time, right after Mario.
If you've been to a convention of any sort before, you know that there are good and bad panels, and that their inherent goodness or badness often has little to do with the actual content being discussed. That's because giving a panel is a skill that not everyone has. However, it is a skill that everyone could have! In this article, I'll tell you how to give a good panel on practically any subject. Image by Shannon Cottrell
I don't know how many of you had this experience in your youth, but when I was a kid, I used to actively think about what would happen if I suddenly woke up in a fantasy land, or were to pass through a portal into another space and time. I knew it wouldn't really happen, but when you're a kid, these can be important issues to you. So I slept with my glasses on every night, just in case. Photo from George Pal's The Time Machine.
Still on the fence about Apple's native Notes app? The latest Notes update for iPhone, iPad, and Mac is about to change your mind. With some fantastic new features and plenty of valuable tools from previous software versions, Notes is becoming a clear winner when it comes to saving important information from your personal and professional life.
Safari isn't the only web browser on your iPhone or iPad that will let you add icons to your Home Screen for progressive web apps and website bookmarks. Apple gave developers the key to its "Add to Home Screen" feature, and your favorite iOS or iPadOS web browser may already support it.
Apple offers many ways to customize the Home Screen on your iPhone, from adding widgets and scheduling rotating wallpapers to hiding apps and entire pages. But some of the best ways to customize your Home Screen are options Apple won't even tell you about, either because they haven't become official features yet or because Apple is OK with the workarounds.
Spotify lets you customize some aspects of your experience, whether on the desktop, web, Android, or iOS app. And one of the simplest yet coolest customizations you can perform is changing your playlist cover images. However, it doesn't work on all playlists.
Siri can perform many actions for you on your iPhone, such as sending messages, providing information, getting directions, looking up a contact, and playing music. Still, there are even more important Siri voice commands that every iPhone owner should know — even the ones who hate Siri.
When you need to take notes, sketch out projects, brainstorm with others, create mood boards, or map out ideas without constraints, look no further than Freeform, Apple's new collaboration-friendly digital whiteboard.
Apple's iOS 16 update changes the way Siri speaks responses, defaulting to a more "automatic" solution that lets your iPhone decide when it should or shouldn't talk out loud. That may sound like a good thing, but it makes it harder to keep Siri quiet when you only want muted responses. Thankfully, a new iOS update gives you back some control.
Apple automatically converts most URLs in the Messages app into rich link previews, but they aren't always pretty, and sometimes you just want to see the full URL instead. While there is no setting on iOS, iPadOS, or macOS that disables rich link previews in the Messages app, there is an easy way to show the URL complete with the scheme, domain name, and path.
From time to time, you may need to locate the version and build number for a particular app on your iPhone or iPad, but it's not at all obvious where you can find the information. Well, there's more than one place to look on iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, but none are perfect solutions. Knowing each method will ensure you can always find any app's real version number.
On an iPhone, it's easy to blur or cross out faces and sensitive information found in your images — just use Apple's Markup tool for all your obfuscation needs. Things aren't as simple when it comes to videos. There are no built-in iOS features to blur, redact, or otherwise obscure people, objects, and text in videos, but we've found a free solution that gets the job done well without any watermarks.
The makers of arguably the two most important mobile AR apps, Niantic and Snap, both had good news this week, with the former preparing to replicate its success with Pokémon GO for another franchise and the latter notching another popular augmented reality Lens for Snapchat.
The recent announcement that Facebook will begin inserting advertisements into its VR experience on its Oculus Quest headset has set the VR and augmented reality industry into a frenzy.
