Unlike the realm of virtual reality, augmented reality is less about losing yourself in some fantasy environment, and more about getting things done in the real world. So while we've seen some great games that capture the imagination on devices like the Magic Leap One and the HoloLens, when it comes to real-world usage, the biggest developments coming for AR apps that are the more practical ones.
For the uninitiated, it can be difficult to buy that special hacker in your life a perfect holiday gift. That's why we've taken out the guesswork and curated a list of the top 20 most popular items our readers are buying. Whether you're buying a gift for a friend or have been dying to share this list with someone shopping for you, we've got you covered with our 2018 selection of hacker holiday gifts.
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.
You know your infant is advanced. Maybe you want to give her or him a head start at learning things like writing code to develop the next big Fortnite game. Or maybe you just want to play Fortnite with your infant. But the American Academy of Pediatrics discourages screen time for kids under than 18 months, with just one exception: video chat.
Your childhood "social networking" may have been to go outdoors to the neighbor's — and outdoors is a great place for kids to be. But these days, the terms educational, digital media, entertainment, and toddlers don't have to be mutually exclusive. Like most things in life, it's about balance, and these apps can aid your child with social-emotional development when not playing with friends.
This time last year, we got our first taste of what mobile app developers could do in augmented reality with Apple's ARKit. Most people had never heard of Animojis. Google's AR platform was still Tango. Snapchat introduced its World Lens AR experiences. Most mobile AR experiences existing in the wild were marker-based offerings from the likes of Blippar and Zappar or generic Pokémon GO knock-offs.
Three new iPhones means you have to make a choice: Do you go with the smaller iPhone XS, the larger iPhone XS Max, or the cheaper iPhone XR? There's lots to like about each model, but if you want to make an informed decision, it's time to learn what each has to offer. Here's what the iPhone XS Max brings to the table.
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.
You may have heard of a signal jammer before, which usually refers to a device that blasts out a strong enough radio signal to drown out the reception of nearby devices like cell phones. Purpose-built jammer hardware is outright illegal in many countries. Still, Wi-Fi is vulnerable to several different jamming attacks that can be done with Kali Linux and a wireless network adapter.
Russian cyber disinformation campaigns have many missions, but one of particular interest is using technology to monitor, influence, and disrupt online communications surrounding culturally sensitive topics or protests. The ability to watch these events, and even filter positive or negative tweets to amplify, gives rise to the ability to execute a number of disinformation campaigns.
Developers creating login systems know better than to store passwords in plain text, usually storing hashes of a password to prevent storing the credentials in a way a hacker could steal. Due to the way hashes work, not all are created equal. Some are more vulnerable than others, and a little Python could be used to brute-force any weak hashes to get the passwords they were created from.
Kali Linux is established as the go-to operating system for penetration testing, but in its default configuration, it's less than ideal for regular desktop use. While in many scenarios, a live boot or virtual environment can resolve these issues, in some situations, a full installation is better. A few simple changes can be made to a Kali Linux desktop to make it safer to use in this environment.
The iOS App Store is a big place, offering over two million applications in total. However, there are actually some apps you can and should install on your iPhone that the iOS App Store doesn't include. And no, these apps do not require any difficult jailbreaking or complicated sideloading techniques — they are really simple to install.
There has been significant debate over law enforcement's right to access our digital devices in recent years. New tools from Grayshift and Cellebrite are popping up faster than ever to help government agencies, as well as traditional hackers, break into iPhones. If you're concerned, you can take steps right now to beef up your passcode and prevent outsiders from gaining access to your device.
Apple has tools built into iOS to help parents monitor the iPhone habits of their children. However, those same tools can be used by everyday iPhone owners to both hide apps they don't care about, as well as restrict features they don't need or that infringe on privacy. Whether you fit into one category or the other, all iPhone users can benefit from the "Restrictions" feature.
Over the years, the internet has become a dangerous place. As its popularity has increased, it has attracted more hackers looking to make a quick buck. However, as our dependency on the web grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to sever all ties. This means we have to protect one of our weakest points, the password.
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.
The one thing that separates a script kiddy from a legitimate hacker or security professional is the ability to program. Script kiddies use other people's tools, while hackers and security pros write their own tools. To that end, we're going to see how a stack overflow vulnerability allows us to flood a variable with enough input to overwrite the instruction pointer with our own commands.
The mysterious technology product teased via an eccentric TED Talk nearly five years ago has finally been revealed, and it's called the Magic Leap One: Creator Edition. After all of the non-disclosure agreements, furtive comments from CEOs and insiders given early access to the device, and a seemingly never-ending string of hints dropped by the company's CEO, Rony Abovitz, on Twitter, we finally have a real look at the product.
Surveillance is always a useful tool in a hacker's arsenal, whether deployed offensively or defensively. Watching targets yourself isn't always practical, and traditional surveillance camera systems can be costly, lacking in capabilities, or both. Today, we will use motionEyeOS running on a Raspberry Pi Zero to create a small, concealable Wi-Fi connected spy camera that is both affordable and easily concealed.
Your iPhone has a lot of personal information contained within it, so of course you want your device to be secure. You don't want that information getting into the wrong hands — or any hands other than your own, for that matter.
A new technological movement without the technology itself is just an idea sitting and waiting. Once the technology is present in the equation, movement forward can begin. This is how many of us see the head-mounted displays (HMDs) and smartglasses that have recently entered the augmented and mixed reality market — or are coming out in the next few months. This is a movement that will sweep over the world, changing everything in its path, and these are some of the people behind it.
It's official — the newest version of Google's mobile operating system is called Android 8.0 Oreo, and it's in the process of rolling out to many different devices. Oreo has plenty of changes in store, ranging from revamped looks to under-the-hood improvements, so there's tons of cool new stuff to explore.
Right now is that magical time of year when the general public decides to embrace their inner fattie and get baking in the kitchen. Hello, pies and cakes and cookies and everything carbs. Goodbye, diets—see you in the next year, when you cripple us with unbridled guilt and longing.
Black Mirror, Netflix's technology-horror anthology, never fails to provide thought-provoking entertainment centered around emerging and futuristic technologies, and the third season's second episode, "Playtest," delves deep into the worlds of mixed, augmented, and virtual reality. While designed to leave you haunted by the end, offering a more "evil" narrative than we'll likely see in our actual future, the episode explores possibilities that aren't as far off as one might think.
When it comes to smartphone screens, there are two predominant technologies—the traditional LCD panel, and the newer AMOLED display. Most phones still use LCD screens, as the tech is more cost-effective due to its longstanding reign as the primary display type in TVs, smartphones, and tablets.
Now that smartphones have ensured that we're connected to the internet 24/7, online privacy has become more important than ever. With data-mining apps hoping to sell your information for targeted ads, and government agencies only one subpoena away from knowing every detail of your private life, encryption has become our last line of defense.
What began as a regional specialty has turned into a national trend that looks like it's here to stay: Nasvhille hot chicken has caught on like wildfire, with hot chicken restaurants popping up across the country—not to mention the 8 hot chicken restaurants that you can find in Nashville alone! The history of this Deep South dish is fascinating, and you can read more about it here.
Brand loyalty is one of the main factors behind our decision to choose a particular mobile device, but it doesn't have to be the entire equation. Educated consumers know that certain devices simply fit their budget and usage better than others, which means you can't always let a logo dictate what kind of phone or tablet you buy.
No more carrying around heavy laptops and thousands of Linux Live CDs and USBs to always be ready for pentesting on the fly!
Straight out of the box, the Nexus 5 is an awesome device, but even it can be faster with better battery life. Luckily, one of the things that makes it so awesome is that there are tons of developers creating mods for it, since it runs stock Android by default. When it comes to gaining speed and better battery life, flashing a custom kernel is the way to go.
If you're someone who frequently awakes in the middle of the night trembling in terror, you might want to consider swapping sides. According to research done at Yüzüncü Yil University, those who sleep on their left side experience more nightmares than those who sleep on their right.
One of the best things about Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy is how realistic he makes the caped crusader feel. Unlike the Joel Schumacher or even the Tim Burton versions, Nolan's world seems grounded in some level of scientific fact. But just how close is science to actually being able to replicate some of the Dark Knight's gadgetry?
If anybody knows how to pick a lock, it's Schuyler Towne.
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.
Visual Voicemail revolutionized phone calls and the voicemail system when Apple introduced it with the original iPhone. Now, thanks to iOS 17, Apple has done it again with its newest calling feature, Live Voicemail. This feature uses speech-to-text technology to show you voicemail transcriptions on the incoming call screen in real time, helping you decide if it's important enough to answer the call.
Apple Notes started with humble beginnings as a scratchpad of sorts, a place for us to stash some simple text for later. It's received many upgrades over the years, but Apple's latest iPhone software update is a game-changer.
Now that Vision Pro, Apple's mixed reality headset, has been announced, Apple can free up some R&D resources to commit to its upcoming foldable iPhone, which has been rumored for just as long as Vision Pro has. Will it be a flip-style or a larger foldable? Let's see what all the industry experts and Apple leakers have to say.
On the latest iOS software, your iPhone comes with significant privacy and security enhancements to protect your data even more than Apple did before. From safeguarding your iPhone to passcode-protecting files to making it easier to browse the web safely, there's a lot you need to know and start using.
There are many things Apple doesn't tell you about its products, and that's definitely the case when it comes to its Messages app. Hidden features lurk in your SMS and iMessage conversations just waiting to be found, and we've unearthed some of the most secret ones.
