Hot Gadget Hacks Posts
News: Amazon Sumerian Now Available to Anyone Who Wants to Create AR & VR Apps
Amazon Web Service's do-it-yourself tool for building augmented reality experiences and VR has graduated from beta and is now available to all interested users.
News: ANTVR Goes Modular to Shrink the Size & Expand the Field of View of Its AR Headset
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.
News: NBC's Today Show Uses Snapchat to Let You Dress for the Royal Wedding in Augmented Reality
Royal wedding fever has officially taken over the media, and that obsession with the UK's latest marriage event has now extended to Snapchat, thanks to a new Lens from the Today Show.
YouTube 101: How to Turn on Incognito Mode for a Private Viewing Experience
Incognito Mode is a privacy feature that was popularized by Google Chrome, and it recently made its way to GBoard. Now it's coming to the YouTube app to help make your video watching experience truly private.
News: Samsung's Galaxy S9 & S9+ Finally Get ARCore Support
Google's Pixel smartphone had a decent head start as one of the first devices to offer ARCore, but that early exclusivity has been frustrating for some Android device owners. Some of that frustration was relieved when Google added more Android devices to the ARCore list in February.
Instagram 101: How to Create Polls to Get Questions Answered by Followers & Other Users
Whether it's for your company, your professional image, or just your personal account, making a poll on Instagram is a great way to reach out to followers, friends, family, and other users to measure their thoughts and opinions about any given topic. Instagram for Android and iOS makes it fun and simple to do so, offering the same tools to professional and personal users alike.
Facebook 101: How to Download All Your Data from the Android & iPhone App
We've been able to download our Facebook data onto our computers for a while now, but now you can do so right from the comfort of your iPhone or Android phone. With it, you'll be able to integrate your data into other apps that support it or even just download it before you deactivate your account.
News: Rick & Morty Fan Creates Snapchat Lens to Transport You into the Adult Swim Universe
It's not an official app, but for fans of Rick and Morty, it's a welcome piece of the series' universe until the recently renewed animated show returns to Adult Swim.
News: iOS 11.4 Beta 5 Released for iPhones with Under-the-Hood Improvements
Apple is speeding things up in the iOS 11.4 development. The company released to developers the fifth beta for iOS 11.4 on Monday, May 15. Public beta testers got the update just hours later. The update comes just one week after the release of the fourth 11.4 beta, which introduced minor bug fixes and security patches to iPhone running the software. This beta version doesn't seem any different.
News: Tech Toothbrush from Samsung Incubator Graduate Uses AR to Help Kids Improve Brushing Habits
Kitten Planet, a spin-off company that grew up in Samsung's C-Lab incubator, has developed a connected toothbrush that teaches and motivates children to brush their teeth better via augmented reality while tracking their performance.
How To: Play 'Final Fantasy Awakening' on Your iPhone Before Its Official Release
Despite numerous reports announcing its stateside arrival, "Final Fantasy Awakening" has yet to show up in the iOS App Store, much to the chagrin of millions of fans in the U.S. Unfortunately, the game seems to be stuck in soft-launch limbo, with no word as to when it'll land stateside. With a little hack, however, you can give this immersive game a try right now.
ARCore 101: How to Create a Mobile AR Application in Unity, Part 4 (Enabling Surface Detection)
One of the primary factors that separates an augmented reality device from a standard heads-up display such as Google Glass is dimensional depth perception. This can be created by either RGB cameras, infrared depth cameras, or both, depending on the level of accuracy you're aiming for.
News: Fantasmo Wants to Map the World & Its Buildings in 3D with Your Smartphone's Camera
Another AR cloud savior has emerged this week in Fantasmo, a startup that wants to turn anyone with a smartphone into a cartographer for spatial maps.
News: ABC News Seeks Audience with Royal Wedding Onlookers via AR App
If you have yet to receive your invitation to next weekend's royal wedding in the UK, then you can still experience part of the pomp and circumstance in augmented reality courtesy of ABC News.
News: Try These 5 Hot New Snapchat Lenses — The Simpsons, Playable Flappy Bird & More
In the wild world of Snapchat lenses, this week was an especially good one for cool effects. Lens-crafters (really hoping I can get that name to stick) have gotten a lot better at making non-gimmicky lenses that allow you to interact with them in new and unique ways.
How To: Enter Split Screen Mode in Android P to Run Two Apps Side by Side
In the new Android P, the multitasking view is reminiscent of webOS days. As a result, enabling split screen mode no longer works as it once did. However, it's still easy to use, whether or not you're using the new "Swipe up on Home button" gesture or have stuck with the old-style navigation buttons that include the "Recents" aka "Overview" softkey.
How To: Use Screen Pinning in Android 9.0 Pie to Lock Apps in the Foreground
Screen pinning is a fairly unknown feature despite the fact that it's been around since 2014. It's a helpful security tool that limits access to your device to only one app — perfect for those times when someone asks to borrow your phone. While previous versions kept this feature exactly the same, Android 9.0 Pie's new multitasking UI changes the way it works.
How To: Enable the New Multitasking Swipe Gestures in Android 9.0 Pie
While Android 9.0 Pie introduced some significant changes to the core operating system, the feature most people will be talking about is the native gesture controls. By default, these gestures are disabled — but for those of us wanting to try to the future of Android, here's how to enable the new controls.
Market Reality: AR Competition Heats Up as Microsoft, Google, & Samsung Make Money Moves
Some of the big guns developing augmented reality technology fired shots at their competitors with announcements and leaked plans this week.
News: Here's How Shared AR Experiences will work via Google's Cloud Anchors
In the arms race between ARKit and ARCore, Google scored a big win with the announcement of its Cloud Anchors shared AR experiences platform at Google I/O on Tuesday.
How To: Install Android 9.0 Pie Beta on Your Essential Phone
Earlier this year, we got our first taste of Android Pie in the form of Developer Preview 1. As with all past Android previews, DP1 was limited to Google devices — but at Google I/O 2018, Google announced that Developer Preview 2 would be accessible to other devices, including the Essential PH-1.
News: Niantic Planning to Chart AR Maps with Crowdsourcing Help from Gamers
If you are an active player of Pokémon GO, you may soon be capturing more than just virtual pocket monsters.
How To: Black Dot Character Crashing Messages? Try These Fixes on Your iPhone
There are some nasty iOS bugs out there, many determined to crash the Messages app. For example, in February 2018, we saw a Telugu character render the iPhone messaging app totally useless. While that bug has been fixed, the nightmare continues in a new bug, aptly dubbed the "Black Dot."
News: First Images Captured by Microsoft's Project Kinect for Azure Surface Online
Images captured by Microsoft's next generation Kinect depth-sensing camera that will facilitate augmented reality experiences in the next version of the HoloLens and give computer vision to untold multitudes of connected devices in enterprise facilities, have made their way into the wild.
News: Samsung & Microsoft Join Forces to Take on Apple with Combo AR & VR Headset
Mere weeks after rumors surfaced that Apple may be working on a headset capable of VR and augmented reality, it appears that Samsung is taking the same approach, but with an assist from Microsoft.
How To: 24 New Features & Changes the Android Oreo Update Gives Your LG V30
Its official: On May 8, T-Mobile finally released the Android Oreo update for the LG V30 and V30+. Now, every major US wireless carrier has pushed the update. For me, this update is a big deal. Not only does Android Oreo bring some new tools and features, but LG has also included a few additions as well.
News: Google Lens Gets Smarter with Text Selection, Style Recommendations, & Real-Time Search
During Tuesday's keynote at the I/O developer conference, Google unveiled new capabilities for its Lens visual search engine and expanded the availability of the platform in smartphone camera apps.
News: Google's ARCore Moves Past Apple's ARKit in the Race for Shared Augmented Reality Experiences
On Tuesday, at Google's I/O developer conference, the company announced a huge update to its ARCore augmented reality toolkit that matches the latest features of ARKit, and surpasses Apple's AR platform via support for shared experiences.
How To: Install Android 9.0 Pie Beta on Your Google Pixel or Pixel 2 Right Now
Earlier this year, with the Developer Preview, we got a tantalizing glimpse of Google's upcoming Android 9.0 Pie and a whole slew of new features that comes along with it, such as iPhone X-like gestures and improved security features, to name a few. With its announcement at Google I/O, Android Pie just got a lot more accessible.
News: 8 New Features Coming to Google Assistant for Android & iPhone
According to Google at their 2018 I/O conference, Google Assistant is now available on over 500 million devices. Now that the assistant is available on iPhones as well, Google has to give iOS users a reason to switch to its assistant over the built-in Siri. Today, Google has eight more reasons for users to do so.
News: Google Working on AR Walking Navigation Mode for Maps
At Google's I/O developer conference keynote on Tuesday, ARCore may have been absent, but Google did preview a potentially trailblazing augmented reality feature for Google Maps.
Google Assistant 101: How to Change the Voice on Android & iPhone to More Natural Male & Female Speakers
Before Google I/O 2018, the Google Assistant for Android and iOS had only two available voice options to choose from — a robotic female and male voice. But there are now six additional voices, and these ones sound way more natural than any other mobile voice assistant (plus, John Legend's voice is coming later this year).
News: Epson Adds Biometric Authentication from Redrock to Its Smartglasses
Users of Epson's smartglasses can now tell their devices to "talk to the hand" when it comes to passwords and authentication.
News: Kinect Graduates from Gaming to Enterprise with Project Kinect for Azure
Microsoft's Monday keynote introduced the fourth generation of the company's Kinect sensor during Build 2018 in Seattle.
News: iOS 11.4 Beta 4 Released for iPhone with Mostly Under-the-Hood Improvements
Apple released the fourth developer beta for iOS 11.4 on Monday, May 7, followed the next day with the public beta release. This update arrives just six days after the company seeded beta 3 to users, which fixed an 11.3 issue with 3D Touch, among other various bugs.
News: Microsoft Unveils Remote Assist & Layout, New HoloLens Apps Aimed at Workforce Productivity
On Monday, at its annual Build developer conference, Microsoft revealed two new apps for the HoloLens apps.
Spotify 101: How to Download Music for Offline Playback on Android & iPhone
Spotify is a great music subscription service, but constantly streaming songs can really run up your monthly mobile data. Fortunately, you're able to download music from Spotify on Android and iOS in order to preserve your precious data cap.
News: 7-Eleven Joins Forces with 'Deadpool 2' for Augmented Reality App & In-Store Experience
With the theatrical premiere of Deadpool 2 less than two weeks away, the hype train for the sequel to 2016's surprise R-rated hit is gaining steam, and augmented reality is on board for the ride.
Market Reality: Microsoft's HoloLens Sales Figures Revealed, AR Boosts Snapchat Revenue, & Facebook Expands AR Platform
This week, we're beginning to see the wide ranging impacts of some of the early iterations of augmented reality hardware and software.
News: U2 Takes Fans Behind the Scenes of Its New Augmented Reality Tour
Last month, we told you about U2's new augmented reality-powered music tour. But if you don't have the means to travel to the show, the group recently revealed an inside look at what it will be like and what inspired the band to dive into immersive technology.