Hot Gadget Hacks Posts
Have You Seen This?: Secrets of Ancient Egypt Shows the Potential of HoloLens Tourism
A few days ago, I pulled up the Windows Store on my HoloLens and saw a few new applications. One that caught my attention was Oriental Museum, which lets you explore China's Forbidden City, and the other one is very similar free demo app called Secrets of Ancient Egypt by Link Development.
Have You Seen This?: Oriental Museum App Explores China's Forbidden City on the HoloLens
In this episode of Have You Seen This?, we will look at Oriental Museum by 247 Technology Limited, a free application in the Windows Store for HoloLens. Museum exhibits seem to be a popular theme amongst the demonstrations going up, so let's see how this one looks.
News: HTC's Cryptic 'for U' Tweet Could Signal a Move into Augmented Reality
Earlier this week, a mysterious tweet appeared on the HTC Twitter account of a picture containing the letter "U" topped with a tiny "for" and the date "01.12.2017" at the bottom. It is a pretty solid teaser, but for a company that has had a solid year with their Vive virtual reality headset, and all of the other technological appendages they have, it seems a bit ominous for them.
HoloToolkit: Make Words You Can See in Unity with Typography Prefabs
You may remember my post from a couple weeks ago here on NextReality about the magical scaling ratios for typography from Dong Yoon Park, a Principal UX Designer at Microsoft, as well as developer of the Typography Insight app for Hololens. Well, his ideas have been incorporated into the latest version of HoloToolkit, and I'm going to show you how they work.
News: HoloSuit Proof of Concept Uses Full Body Motion to Control the HoloLens
Here at NextReality, we talk a lot about the many different ways of controlling holograms in the HoloLens and other augmented and mixed reality devices; New and creative ways are coming more and more every day. Most recently is something called the HoloSuit. In the 25-second clip below, you can see a woman moving the arm of a jacket which in turn moves a 3D model of Darth Vader on the screen. It's a simple idea with big potential.
News: Magic Leap Is 'Racing Toward Launch' According to New CMO
Well, we have some potentially good news for those wanting to experience Magic Leap. The ultra-secretive company seems to be planning a big year in 2017.
News: Nexus 6P Battery Randomly Dying? It's Not Just You
The Google Nexus 6P, manufactured by Huawei and released a little more than a year ago, has been a well-received smartphone in general. It sports front-facing stereo speakers, an awesome camera, a massive screen, supports all US carriers, and doesn't allow the infamous Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 to hamper its performance in the slightest.
News: New Uber Update Lets You Travel to a Friend & Use Custom Snapchat Filters
Uber has recently been updating their app on a weekly basis to ensure that users have the smoothest travel experience possible. The entire UI was recently redesigned to increase user-friendliness, the total app size was reduced to improve performance, and an intelligent shortcuts feature was added which tries to guess your next destination.
Video: Two Women Wearing HoloLenses Duke It Out Anime-Style in the Middle of a Restaurant
Joyce Kuo of Nijie Technology released a video showing a group fighting it out Dragon Ball Z-style in a restaurant, but instead of Goku, Piccolo or Vegeta, we have two horse-headed young ladies shooting fire and other elements at each other.
News: Google Pixel Speaker Sound Distorted, Popping, or Staticky? Here's How to Fix It
The brand new Pixel and Pixel XL, Google's first direct attempts at taking on the iPhone, haven't rolled out exactly how Google would have liked. The devices have already had more than their fair share of issues, starting with the camera, and now extending to the built-in speaker. The camera issues were marked as "solved" by Google, but the lens flare is still very much there, just not as prominent.
How To: Enable YouTube Background Playback for Free on Android Nougat
YouTube is a great place for all your mainstream audio and video needs. But you can't simply plug in your headphones, choose a playlist, and put your phone back in your pocket without subscribing to YouTube Red, which costs $9.99/month for ad-free and background playback. If you can't afford that for just background playback, there are other ways.
Breaking: The Meta 2 Augmented Reality Headset Is Shipping
The Meta 2 developer kit has finally begun shipping! Gary Garcia, the senior director of customer success at Meta, just sent out an email that they are shipping out to the first round of preorder customers. Waves will be building from there, up to far higher manufacturing rates near the end of Q1 of 2017.
News: The OnePlus 3T Crashes When Its Snapdragon 821 Processor Runs at Full Speed
The OnePlus 3T was released about five months after the OnePlus 3 with several noticeable upgrades. Firstly, it has a new processor, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 821, which is the same one that the Pixel and Pixel XL sport. Second is the 16 MP front-facing camera with a different sensor. And the next big change was a slightly larger 3,400 mAh capacity battery.
News: Google Said It'd Take Years but This Guy Already Got His Daydream Working with an iPhone
Matteo Pisani, CTO and co-founder of Remoria VR, has managed to do something the folks over at Google said couldn't be done for at least a couple of years. With a little bit of tinkering, Pisani was able get his Google Daydream VR headset and remote to work on an iOS device.
Video: Haptics Make Holograms Touchable on the HoloLens
Imagine wearing your HoloLens, then reaching out to touch a hologram and actually feeling it. Mind blown, right?! Now imagine that same hologram responding to your touch. I don't mean in the way holograms currently respond to an air tap, but a much more refined and precise touch. Maybe you touch a character on the shoulder and it turns around to see you, or maybe you hit a button in the air and it reacts accordingly.
How To: Get a System-Wide Equalizer on Your Pixel or Pixel XL with Viper Audio
Google's Pixel and Pixel XL flagship phones are a rousing success, with consumers praising the fluid user experience and overall performance as two of the devices' biggest strengths. But even though Google may have knocked it out of the park with a set of Apple-like smartphones that "just work," there's still room for improvement in a few areas.
News: Make Apps for HoloLens in JavaScript with HoloJS
A new repository appeared in Microsoft's GitHub account a few months ago for a project called HoloJS. For those JavaScript developers out there that have been wanting to make HoloLens apps, this one's for you.
News: New Android Malware Is Emptying People's Bank Accounts—Here's How to Protect Yourself
A scary piece of malware just got a lot more terrifying this week. Security firm Comodo reports that "Tordow," a banking Trojan first uncovered in September 2016, received a massive update this December.
News: HoloGroup Is Trying to Crowdfund Their Holographic Learning App HoloStudy
When the HoloStudy Demo app for HoloLens came out in September, it was a pretty impressive start to what could be a very valuable science tool for education. Now, Moscow-based HoloGroup, makers of HoloStudy, started an Indiegogo campaign to improve their modular teaching app.
News: Samsung Announces They're Entering the AR Field
This week, Dr. Sung-Hoon Hong, Vice President of Samsung Electronics, announced at the Virtual Reality Summit in San Diego that not only does Samsung have a new virtual reality headset coming, but that Samsung intends to enter the field of augmented reality, too. In fact, Hong talked very little about virtual reality and instead spoke at length about Samsung's move into augmented reality.
How To: Play Almost Any PSP Game on Your Android Phone
If you really want to play Gran Turismo or Castlevania on the go, Sony's PlayStation Portable is a great way to do it. But it gets harder and harder to justify carrying around a PSP handheld gaming console when you've got an equally powerful Android phone in your pocket already. The PSP had a good 10 years before being discontinued, and your Android can pick up the slack now.
Rumor Roundup: A New Microsoft HoloLens Could Be Coming in 2017—Here's What We Know So Far
We've been hearing some interesting rumors in the last few days that are stirring up all kinds of speculation about the potential upcoming consumer release of the HoloLens. However, MSPoweruser has speculated a bit further past the consumer HoloLens release to a possible HoloLens 2 as soon as Q3 2017.
News: This Guy Got Android Running on a Nokia Lumia Windows Phone
Ah, the Nokia Lumia series... what can be said about Microsoft's recently-deceased line of smartphones? They might not have been the best, but they certainly weren't the worst, and they did get the job done in terms of what you would expect from a smartphone.
News: Trimble & Umbra Partner to Bring Complex Imagery on the HoloLens
When developing for the HoloLens, keeping a constant 60 fps (frames per second) while making things look beautiful is a challenge. Balancing the processing power to display complex models and keeping the frame rate where it needs is just a straight up painful process, but a solution seems to be on the horizon.
News: iOS 10.2 Update for iPhone Snuck Star Ratings Back into the Music App
When Apple released the iOS 10.2 update to the public on December 12, 2016, iPhone users got a slew of new features, including new emojis, a brand new TV app, the ability to save camera settings, and more. But out of all of these new features, the one that interests me the most is something they didn't even include in the release notes—star ratings are back in the Music app!
News: Unity Releases EditorVR Experimental Build Days After Unity 5.6 Beta
Unity released the Beta 5.6 on December 13 with a bunch of new upgrades in the works, including support for Vulkan, better instancing options, and more improvements to particles—to name just a few that are potentially relevant to the mixed reality community. And today, December 15, Unity has just released the EditorVR that we reported on a few weeks ago as a part of their "Experimental" builds.
News: Smart Home Proof of Concept Uses a Raspberry Pi to Control Air Conditioner with HoloLens
Empea Berlin, a Germany-based company specializing in augmented, mixed, and virtual reality software, released a Facebook video a few months back showing off their experiments in smart home technology. Using a Raspberry Pi and a HoloLens unit, they were able to make a virtual remote control for an air conditioning unit. The remote is complete with various modes, temperature controls, timers, and other features. There have been no updates on this project since they first showed it off, but hop...
News: How to Get Skype's New Android App with Native Calling, SMS & Contacts Management
There's no question about it—Skype is one useful program, but has always been lacking in the mobile department. On your desktop, Skype works just fine and all of its options are available for usage. However, the same cannot be said for Android. On Android, you can't even change your status to "Away" or "Invisible."
How To: Easily Transfer Contacts, Photos & Calendars from iOS to Android with Google Drive
Google Drive has a very simple way to switch from iOS to Android. iPhone users who want to take the plunge into the wonderful world of Android, but were hesitant to do so in the past because of the laborious process of backing up their data, can back up their contacts, photos, videos, and calendars with the tap of a button.
News: Bluetooth 5 Is Here—But It Won't Make Your Headphones Sound Better
Bluetooth 5 was announced and made officially available on December 7, 2016. It comes with a handful of improvements to speed, range, maximum device connectivity, and anti-interference from other nearby devices. While this might be great for those special few who use Bluetooth on a daily basis to send and receive (or steal) data, what about the average Joe?
Have You Seen This?: Holo Space Invaders Hits the Windows Store for HoloLens
For those familiar with my old YouTube series, New in the Store, you will be excited to know that I am starting something very similar here on NextReality that's a bit more broad in scope. Have You Seen This? will take a look at HoloLens applications that are new in the Windows Store, as well as some that may not have gotten the attention they deserve.
How To: Install Android 7.1.1 on Your Verizon Nexus 6P
Android 7.1.1 stock images for the Nexus 6P were released last week on December 5, 2016. However, Verizon users seem to have been excluded from the update. Google's factory image page states "All carriers except Verizon" next to version number NMF26F. This doesn't seem fair, especially since Verizon Nexus 5X users received the latest Android Nougat update.
How To: Copy, Share & Search Text from Almost Anywhere in Chrome on Android
Chrome's text selection interface is pretty nice, but it could definitely use some improvements. For instance, when you're in Incognito Mode, you can't perform a web search for words you've highlighted. And when you're typing out a forum post or using any text input field, for that matter, there's no option to search or share any of the text you've written.
News: First App of Its Kind Streams Your HoloLens Screen to iOS
Kazendi, a London-based HoloLens development and rapid prototyping studio, just released a new iOS app in Apple's App Store that lets developers stream HoloLens applications live from the headset to an iPad or iPhone. It's called HoloStream, and is the first iOS/HoloLens crossover app we've seen so far.
How To: Replace Your Android Browser with This Enhanced Version of CyanogenMod Gello
No matter which smartphone you buy, it will come with an internet browser preinstalled. Depending on your OEM, the default browser might be called Samsung Internet, HTC Internet, Silk Browser by Amazon, ASUS Browser, or Google Chrome—there's just so many stock browsers available.
News: Google Finally Made Gboard Available for Android (APK Download)
It took nearly six months, but Google has finally made its wildly popular iOS keyboard available to Android users. Technically, it's just an update to the existing Google Keyboard app for Android, but it renames the app to "Gboard" and includes all of the features from iOS, so Android users can stop feeling like Google's neglected stepchildren.
How To: Get 'Night Light' & 'Moves' to Turn Your Nexus 6P into a Pixel
Now that Android 7.1.1 has been released, several features that were previously exclusive to Google's new Pixel phones are now available on the Nexus 6P. However, Google seems to be holding back on the Pixel's best features, as things like the "Night Light" red screen filter, "Moves" gestures, Google Assistant, blue accent color, and the new solid navigation buttons are still only officially available on the Pixel.
News: Occipital's Bridge Headset—The iPhone's Answer to HoloLens—Is Available Now
A new contender has entered the mixed reality ring. San Fransisco-based Occipital has just released an "Explorer Edition" of Bridge—an iPhone-based mixed and virtual reality headset that uses their popular Structure Sensor. At a fraction of the cost of a HoloLens developers kit, this could be a place many curious people use to find their NextReality.
How To: Root Your LG V20 (US Variant)
The V20 is an amazing phone from LG powered by Android. Packing impressive features such as a removable battery, expandable storage, and the latest Android version straight out of the box, the V20 is a tough phone to beat.
News: How I Got Started with the HoloLens & NextReality
If you've been following NextReality, you've surely seen me around, or at least have seen my articles. My name is Jason Odom, aka Subere23, and it's about time for a formal introduction.