Hot Gadget Hacks Posts
News: iOS 11.2.5 Released with ChaiOS Patch, HomePod Support & Persistent 'Now Playing' Bar
As expected, Apple began pushing out the final version of iOS 11.2.5 to all iPads, iPhone, and iPod touches today after 41 days of beta testing. Highlights include a fix for the ChaiOS vulnerability, a persistent Now Playing bar in Music, and some signs of AirPlay 2 just in time for the HomePod launch on Feb. 9.
News: Google AR Prototype Enables 3D Model Viewing Through Web Browsers
Unsurprisingly, Google wants to be the caretaker for augmented reality on the web, and its latest move in this endeavor is a 3D model viewer prototype called Article that's designed to work across all web browsers.
How To: Get Front-Facing Flash for Your Selfies in Any Android Camera App
Some phones have a feature that turns your screen white for a second when you're taking a selfie in dim lighting. This does a great job of illuminating your face in a pinch, but there are two problems with it: First, not all phones have the feature, and second, it doesn't work in third-party camera apps like Snapchat and Instagram.
News: Augmented Reality Haunts Meitu Apps in the Name of 'Insidious: The Last Key'
Scary movies seem to be a natural fit for augmented reality experiences, with the latest example coming from the Insidious film franchise.
News: This Winter Olympics App Will Use Augmented Reality to Help Fans Navigate PyeongChang 2018
If navigating a new city for a sporting event, such as the upcoming Super Bowl LII in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is a daunting task, then making your way through a foreign country to a series of venues may seem like an impossible mission.
News: 'The Walking Dead' Mixes Augmented Reality & Wine to Keep You Alive Between Episodes
Fans of The Walking Dead can now kill time until the series returns from its winter hiatus by raising walkers from the labels on bottles of wine influenced by the show.
How To: Reply to Texts with a Selfie GIF on Your iPhone
Most of us have probably used a GIF at least once or twice to respond to a message, and that's why a lot of messaging services and keyboards have GIF search tools readily available to use. Now, Google wants to take GIF responses to a more personal level, by allowing you to create your own selfies GIFs to instantly sent to family and friends.
ProtonMail 101: How to Customize Swipe Actions for Messages
There are a couple swipe gestures in ProtonMail for Android and iOS that let you swipe right on an email to mark it as spam or swipe left to trash it. If you don't get a lot of spam or don't delete a lot of messages, it's easy enough to changes these gestures to perform another action.
Binance 101: Fees & Fine Print You Need to Know Before Trading Bitcoins & Other Cryptocurrencies
In just a few months, Binance has experienced explosive growth, overtaking its rivals to rank among the top three cryptocurrency exchanges in the world by trading volume. Without a doubt, Binance is now among the best sites for trading alt-coins like Ripple (XRP), Stellar (XLM), and NEM (XEM) to name a few.
News: StubHub Punches Augmented Reality's Ticket to Help Fans Navigate Super Bowl LII
While the Minnesota Vikings have a realistic chance to become the first team to play in a Super Bowl on their home field, there will still be fans attending Super Bowl LII who will be in unfamiliar surroundings.
Market Reality: Sketchfab Opens AR Content Store, Amazon Pushes Fitness Gear with AR & DAQRI Capitalizes on AR Training
While it may seem to some like investors are just throwing their money at augmented reality companies simply because the tech is heavily hyped, these money managers do actually want to see a return on their investments.
News: Alexa Voice Control Coming to iPhones Soon
If you're anything like most iPhone users, then you've probably grown tired of Siri's antics by now. She frequently has trouble with even the most basic of questions, and severely lags behind Google Assistant with regards to usability. Unfortunately, Google Assistant for iPhones has been less than ideal.
News: Maroon 5 Dives into Augmented Reality with Music Video Created Entirely in Snapchat
Move over, Hype Williams, it looks like Snapchat is about to take some of your music video-making business, and pop rock group Maroon 5 is the proof.
News: iOS 11.2.5 Beta 7 Released, Expect Public Version Early Next Week
Apple just pushed out iOS 11.2.5 beta 7 today for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch to both developers and public beta testers. On Wednesday, Jan. 17, beta 6 was released, and there were two betas the previous week. With Apple promising a patch for "ChaiOS" next week for everyone, it's like iOS 11.2.5 will be that update.
News: This Is How Big Business, Cities & Native American Tribes Are Leveraging the Power of AR via DAQRI Headsets
While the mainstream consumer market waits for cool augmented glasses to arrive from Magic Leap, or maybe even Snap Inc. (Spectacles 2.0??), AR headset maker DAQRI and its business customers are finding new, money-saving and time-saving use cases for the technology today.
News: This iPhone App Gives You Virtual Prizes for Turning Your Curse Words into Objects in AR
If you love to hear yourself talk, you can now enjoy seeing your words materialize in augmented reality with an ARKit-compatible iPhone or iPad.
How To: What Happens to Your Passwords When You Die?
Most of us have never put much thought into this, but the question needs to be asked — what exactly happens to all of our online accounts when we die? No, the internet won't just know and delete accounts for you, so you need to plan for life's one guarantee. Because without a plan, things become a lot harder to sort out.
News: Amazon Pushes Athletic Wear in Augmented Reality with Mo-Capped Fitness Models
Apparently, Amazon's new year's resolution is to bulk up its fitness fashion sales by pumping up its augmented reality muscles.
Bye, Notch: Samsung's Developing a Way to Embed the Selfie Camera in the Screen
While 2017 saw the rise of "bezel-less" smartphones, none truly lived up to the name. Samsung shrank its bezels significantly, while Apple went with the infamous "notch." However, Samsung seems on the verge of kicking bezels out the door with a new patent application that embeds the front camera into the display.
News: Meta 2 Augmented Reality Headset Available to Businesses Through Dell Starting in February
Following up on a preview of the deal we reported during last week's CES, Dell has officially announced the details around its role as the first company to resell the Meta 2 augmented reality headset.
Dev Report: 'Book of the Dead' Demo Shows New Unity 2018.1 Features Are a Literal Game Changer
In its goal to push the visual quality of real-time rendering to a new level, Unity is starting the new year off right by releasing a sneak peek at its upcoming interactive rendering improvements via a short, three-minute first-person interactive demo called "Book of the Dead."
How To: The 4 Best Password Managers for Android
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.
News: FaceCake Uses Snapchat-Like Camera Effects to Let You Try on Earrings Instead of Masks & Rainbows
Although it sounds like a foodie's take on Facebook, what Calabasas, California-based FaceCake actually offers is more about augmented reality fashion marketing rather than food selfies.
News: iOS 11.2.5 Beta 6 Released, Almost Ready for the Masses
Apple pushed out iOS 11.2.5 beta 6 today for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch to developers and public beta testers. Last week two beta updates were rolled out, and this fast pace may indicate that iOS 11.2.5 is almost ready for prime time.
News: New Messages Bug Lets a Single Link Freeze & Restart Your iPhone
It has not been a good year for Apple, as far as software scandals are concerned. From autocorrect nuisances to secret slowdowns of aging iPhones, Apple has had a lot to answer for. iOS users now have another issue to worry about — it's being called "chaiOS," and it's wrecking havoc on iPhones with just a simple URL.
News: Sketchfab Launches Professional 3D Model Store for AR & VR Content Creators
After hosting millions of free 3D models online, Sketchfab is betting that augmented reality and virtual reality developers and creators will be willing to pay for premium 3D content.
Google Play Music 101: How to Adjust Music Quality to Save Data While Listening
The nemesis of music streamers is data caps, cell phone or otherwise. Restricting monthly data and forcing users to decide between quantity and quality of music has had audiophiles tearing their hair out since streaming toppled the iPod. While the problem regarding music quality seems difficult to tackle, it's far from impossible.
Outlook 101: How to Manage Spam & Quickly Delete All Junk Mail
Nobody likes spam, and that's why email apps continue to vie for your digital attention by boasting about new ways to filter and reduce unsolicited messages. Outlook, an already fantastic client for focusing your cluttered inbox, has now joined in on the action, giving its users new, simple tools to fight against junk mail.
News: This App Takes Eyebrows from Bushy to Blessed via Augmented Reality
Among consumer brands, cosmetics companies rival furniture retailers as the quickest to adopt augmented reality as a means to help customers visualize how products will look before they buy them.
How To: Send & Receive iMessages on Your Android Phone
One of Android's most glaring weaknesses is its lack of an iMessage equivalent. That is, of course, until now. There's one app that will allow Android users to experience iMessage on their non-Apple phone, complete with end-to-end encryption, message effects, and group messaging.
How To: Binance Trading Pairs Help You Keep Track of Your Favorite Coins' Values
With the sheer number of alt-coins that you can buy and sell on Binance — Ripple (XRP), Stellar (XLM), and NEO to name a few — keeping track of coins you're interested in is a hassle. But with the tap of a button, you can mark trades and alt-coins that are on your radar for quick access on your Binance account.
News: 4 Cool New Features in Oreo Beta 2 for the OnePlus 5T
OnePlus is on track to deliver Android 8.0 Oreo to its flagship users by Q1 2018. Open Beta 1 was released for the 5T in late December, and we just received Open Beta 2. But this update isn't just tweaks and bug fixes, OnePlus has included a few new features to enhance the Android experience.
News: Galaxy S9 Announcement, Preorder & Release Dates
Samsung's Galaxy S8 and S8+ are two fantastic devices. That's why we're so excited about the upcoming S9 and S9+. With dual cameras, super slo-mo, dual aperture, and even smaller bezels, the S9 looks to be a device worth picking up day-one. Thankfully, we now officially know when that day is.
YouTube 101: How to Enable the Dark Theme on Your iPhone
One of the downsides to iOS is the lack of a true dark mode. While Apple has offered a workaround, third-party developers have taken it upon themselves to implement dark themes in their apps. While big names like Twitter and Reddit have led the charge for some time, it appears YouTube is the next app to join the party.
How To: Bromite Is the New NoChromo — Open Source Chrome Port with Ad Blocking
A while back, we told you about NoChromo, a no-root ad-blocking browser based on Google Chrome's open source code base, Chromium. That browser was wildly successful, as it offered an identical interface to regular Chrome, but without any ads. Sadly, the developer abandoned NoChromo, but a new ad-blocking Chromium port called Bromite has been released to fill its void.
News: CES Wrap-Up — 2018 Event Confirms Race for Consumer AR Smartglasses Will Be Marathon Rather Than Sprint
Coming into this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the common sentiment among observers was that this was expected to be the big year for augmented reality.
Market Reality: Vuzix & Meta Represent the Brightest AR Present at CES, While Google, Facebook & Huawei Grow AR's Future
It would be difficult to discuss the business of augmented reality without acknowledging the annual tech meat market of CES.
How To: Take Notes in a Terminal Interface with This Linux-Style App
Deep down inside, Android is really just a fork of Linux, the popular open source desktop OS. You can see traces of its roots everywhere, and this lineage still holds a certain appeal with many Android fans. If you're in that boat, you'll love the newest notes app we just found.
News: HoloLens Can Now Simulate Childbirth to Train Medical Students
Medical training technology company CAE Healthcare has given birth to the latest example of how augmented reality can help to build practical operating room skills for doctors and nurses. The company's newest product is called LucinaAR, which harnesses the power of the Microsoft HoloLens.
News: Microsoft Gives Us a Peek at the Reality Room Created for Employees to Experiment with AR & VR
One of the most overlooked components of talking about augmented reality and virtual reality is getting people to actually use the hardware and software associated with these platforms.