RFID chips are everywhere. They're in passports, credit cards, and tons of items you've bought in the last 5 years or so. Big retailers like Walmart started using tracking products with RFID as early as 2004, and today, they're used in everything from mobile payments to hospital record systems. Chances are, unless you're a hermit (in which case you wouldn't be reading this anyway), there's an RFID tag within a few feet of you. Photo by sridgway
The final chapter of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy is here, The Dark Knight Rises, and if you're anything like me, it made you want to immediately don a cowl of your own and run around punching criminals. Don't forget though, one of the most awesome aspects of Batman is his never-ending supply of crazy gadgets. Unfortunately for most of us, we don't have a billion dollars, nor Morgan Freeman, so we'll just have to make do with some good old-fashioned DIY tricks. Read on for a rundown of ...
What's a penny worth these days? Not much. But could there be some free energy hidden inside your spare pennies? You'd be surprised! See how I hack together stacks of pennies into makeshift batteries that can drive small-current devices like LEDs and calculators.
One of the most popular and basic origami geometric shapes is the "water bomb," which is a simple inflated cube. With a few extra folds and only a minor shift in approach, a more complex geometric shape can be achieved.
Windows Media Player 12 is ONLY available for Windows 7 (sorry Vista and XP users), but with it's functionality, it may be worth the upgrade (if you haven't already). This video outlines a few of the simple tasks that WMP12 can perform in W7.
Whether you're at a concert or on a road trip, sometimes you need to camp out. Check out this video if you are planning a car trip where you will be camping along the way. Car camping requires plenty of preplanning and patience but will be totally worth it in the end when you have one sweet road trip!
A thesis is the basis of any paper or essay. The thesis statement sets the tone and subject of your paper and starts you off on the right foot. In this tutorial, learn how to write an impressive thesis statement and get an A on your next paper!
Scallops are delicious and make an exotic addition to the dinner table. Luckily, they are not difficult to prepare. Check out this tutorial and learn how to make scallops so good they will impress your friends and family.
If you think that card counting is only a thing in the movies then think again. You too can try a couple of methods to help you count cards. Like anything, the more you work on it the better you will be.
Many people suffer from camera-shyness, or a reluctance to have their pictures taken. The reasons vary; some people are generally insecure about their appearance, others feel that their pictures don't match the way they want to be shown. Carson Kressley, from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and How to Look Good Naked, offers the following advice: relax! Tight smiles, defensive body language, and insincere emotions can easily ruin a picture. Try to be spontaneous: if you want to smile, look at ...
Origami is an activity which brings life to paper and can be enjoyed by both adults and children alike. In this video, Ngai Chun Cheung demonstrates how to make a mobile phone stand using origami. He begins by folding a rectangular piece of paper at the center lengthwise. Next, he folds the outer open sides to touch the folded edge on one side, which forms a triangle. Then he flips the long rectangular side to form another triangle next to the first one. The paper is opened out and folded alo...
These 2 videos demonstrates how to tie your Converse high tops in fun, stylish ways. For the first video, take a pair of shoes and take out the strings. Thread one string through first whole going INSIDE.
Is that bicycle in your basement vintage and worth something? Get an introduction to various vintage bicycles from a bicycle expert in this free video series.
Hello, my name is Nicole Valentine and on behalf of Expert Village, I'm here to talk to you about how to coordinate birthday games for a birthday party. Now we're going to talk about group competition games. These make the party worth while. For example; if you have let's say about 14 party guest, you can divide them up into groups of 2, put 7 in one group and 7 in the other and have a different activity for each group competition. Let me show you an example. I purchased this bag of straws, M...
Do not discount the "pretty" rocks found along with gold. The sapphires you see are worth many times more than gold. Sapphire (& Ruby, (corundum), is like garnet, a relatively high specific gravity that will catch in a sluice readily. These gems act as gold, they will drop behind a boulder, in bedrock cracks, and set up in the stratiform layers of a bar on the inside bend of a stream. In a perfect (laboratory world) a river bar sets up from front to back: Gold, Platinum, Lead, Iron Ore (black...
While the concepts of molecule interaction, zero force and energy states might be a little beyond an elementary school science fair's scope, the basic idea of water's capabilities and naturally prepared access to animals and insects that rely on it as a habitat is certainly worth the time. Learn how to duplicate this natural phenomenon in this free video clip series with our expert Scott Thompson as he demonstrates the occurrence of water skin or skin tension, and shows you and your children ...
AirPods not only let you listen to music on your iPhone — they let you quickly stop listening to your iPhone's audio by pulling out a single AirPod to pause. If, however, you'd rather have music, audiobooks, podcasts, and other audio files continue playing when you pull out one AirPod — or both AirPods — one settings tweak can get the job done.
With Avatar, Facebook's personalized stickers for use on its social and messaging platforms, those who aren't on Facebook or have otherwise dumped the social network may feel left out.
Google Maps lets you set home and work locations for quick access to navigation. In fact, these two locations are so central to the Maps experience that if you don't have both saved, the app can be a little naggy about it. But if you work from home, there's just one address to use, so what are you supposed to do?
Is it just me, or are the thumbnail in the Samsung Gallery app a bit small? I spend quite a bit of time looking through rows of images, one at a time, to find the right photo. Wouldn't it be so much easier if the thumbnails showed the entire image instead of a cropped square? Well, there's a way to do just that.
One of my favorite iOS hacks is Type to Siri. This lets you type your queries to the iPhone digital assistant without needing to use your voice. Unfortunately, Type to Siri replaces the typical Siri voice prompt on the Home or Side button, meaning you need to choose between one or the other. That is, until iOS 13.
Phones are getting bigger and taller, so it's increasingly harder to reach the notification tray. But Samsung is here to the rescue, as they've introduced into One UI for Galaxy devices a gesture that makes it easy to access the notification drawer on your home screen.
QR codes are supposed to make life easier, but having to install potentially shady third-party apps just to scan one is more trouble than it's worth. Thankfully, there's a QR code reader built into all Google Pixels, but you wouldn't know it unless you stumbled across the feature.
When it comes to building luxury cars, Bentley certainly knows what it's doing. However, when it comes to building an AR app, Bentley is looking less Continental GT and more Geo Metro.
With so much of our personal data floating around the web, it's nearly impossible to get away from spam calls, texts, and emails. Unfortunately, this isn't just limited to the online world — filling in your contact information in a raffle ticket with the hope of winning that shiny new car in the mall, for instance, can often result in getting swamped with spam texts containing sketchy loan offers.
As the premiere app for chatting and video calls, it only makes sense for Skype to provide a dark theme to help prevent eye strain and minimize battery drain. Not only that, it has to also keep pace with popular messaging apps like Facebook Messenger that also have the feature built-in.
Eight days ago, Apple pushed out iOS 12.3 public beta 4 for anyone who wants to try it out. Now, there's a new version, iOS 12.3 public beta 5, released May 7, less than an hour after the developer software update. Just like it's developer version, the fifth iOS 12.3 beta for the public is a simple update with seemingly under-the-hood changes only.
The augmented reality walking navigation mode for Google Maps appears to be closer to an upcoming release for the general public.
Among the many partnerships mentioned early on in the life of the Magic Leap One, by far one of the most talked about has been the comic book app from Madefire.
Facebook has a new dark mode for Messenger, and it's a true OLED black theme. It's was hidden away in earlier versions and you needed to either run a root hack or send a moon emoji to activate it — but now, you can enable dark mode by toggling a simple switch in Facebook Messenger's settings.
Once known as S Health, Samsung Health has become one of the most comprehensive health apps available for Android. In fact, we all can benefit from the features the app brings to the table — whether you're a marathon runner or a couch potato. If you're in the latter category, the app has a simple feature that can nudge you towards becoming more active.
Thanks to Samsung's One UI, we can now experience firsthand what Android 9.0 Pie has to offer flagship Galaxy devices like the Note 9, S9, and S8. Perhaps one of the best features is something we've all been clamoring for: a system-wide dark theme that gives numerous apps and UI elements a custom look without having to resort to using a third-party theme.
With Android Pie, Google added a genuinely useful feature for Pixels called App Suggestions, which uses AI to predict the apps you might want to use next. These show up at the top of your app drawer and in the new dock in the revamped multitasking UI for quick access. But here's the trouble: Muscle memory is a thing.
One of iOS 12's biggest attractions is Group FaceTime, which would allow up to 32 people to video chat together at the same time. It's quite the pitch, and many iOS users are excited to see in action. Unfortunately, Apple has confirmed that Group FaceTime won't be included with iOS 12 when it launches, leaving everyone to chat one-on-one just a little bit longer.
While the next-generation HoloLens does not have a launch date yet, we now have a better idea of how big a leap the device will take in terms of depth sensor performance.
Cable TV network Nickelodeon is looking to break new ground with a new series that will be experienced in virtual and augmented reality.
A fresh batch of developer info has been revealed on Magic Leap's Creator Portal. On Thursday evening, the normally secretive company gave the general public perhaps the closest look yet at Magic Leap One's Lumin operating system.
We learned during the LG G7 ThinQ announcement that AT&T would be carrying a new V series device, the V35 ThinQ. In the LG V35 ThinQ's press release, LG revealed its specifications but left out pricing and availability. Thanks to Project Fi, we now know its price tag, and you may not like it.
When it comes to augmented reality apps, visually immersive experiences are plentiful, but audio experiences are somewhat underrepresented. A new app for iPhones and iPads seeks to shift the AR paradigm toward the latter.
Last week, we told you about Microsoft's Alex Kipman and his nomination for the annual European Inventor Award, presented by the European Patent Office (EPO). And while that's big news in and of itself, it turns out we overlooked a very important detail buried in the EPO's video presentation. What was it? Only one of the most sought-after data points related to the HoloLens since its launch: how many have been sold.
