Hot Gadget Hacks Posts
HoloToolkit: How to Add Voice Commands to Your HoloLens App
The HoloToolkit offers a great many, simple ways to add what seems like extremely complex features of the HoloLens, but it can be a bit tricky if you're new to Windows Holographic. So this will be the first in an ongoing series designed to help new developers understand what exactly we can do with the HoloLens, and we'll start with voice commands.
HoloLens Dev 101: The Unity Editor Basics
With any continuously active software, it can start to become fairly complex after a few years of updates. New features and revisions both get layered into a thick mesh of menu systems and controls that even pro users can get bewildered by. If you are new to a certain application after it has been around for many years, it can be downright intimidating to know where to begin.
News: Rony Abovitz Responds—Says 2017 Is Going to Be 'An Exciting Year' for Magic Leap
In response to the flurry of doubtful headlines about Magic Leap today, set off by an unflattering article from The Information, Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz released a short blog post quickly detailing what to expect from the company over the next year. The gist comes down to this: big things are happening in 2017.
News: Ex-Magic Leapers Confirm the Demo Video We All Thought Was Faked... Was Faked
When the "Just another day in the office at Magic Leap" video was released last year, it was called a mind-blowing, stunning, and breathtaking take on mixed reality gaming. It was a great presentation of what the technology could be, but not for a second did I think it was anything other than a concept video, and I'm not the only one who thought that. This was a goal to reach for mixed reality, not the reality.
How To: Customize Your Favorite Wallpapers for a Refreshing New Look on Android
The beauty of Android is that nearly everything can be customized. But sometimes, we get so caught up in tweaking functionality and other minutiae that one of the most important interfaces gets neglected—the home screen wallpaper.
News: Vuforia AR Starter Kit Hits the Unity Asset Store for Free
In mid-November, Vuforia officially released Vuforia 6.1, which has full support for the Microsoft HoloLens. They also released their AR Starter Kit to the Unity Asset Store, which contains scenes that show you how to use Vuforia features. While I have yet to find any confirmation, I believe it is safe to assume that the AR Starter Kit will work with the HoloLens. I already had a Vuforia tutorial planned for this week, so as soon as I know for sure, I will begin working on it.
News: Microsoft Goes Long for Mixed Reality
The theme running throughout most of this year's WinHEC keynote in Shenzhen, China was mixed reality. Microsoft's Alex Kipman continues to be a great spokesperson and evangelist for the new medium, and it is apparent that Microsoft is going in deep, if not all in, on this version of the future. I, for one, as a mixed reality or bust developer, am very glad to see it.
News: ARM Snapdragon Processors Running Windows 10 Is a Good Sign for Mixed Reality
At the WinHEC Shenzen 2016 Keynote, Microsoft showed off a system running Windows 10 smoothly on an ARM processor. This could be great news for developers of mixed reality software.
How To: Buy Used Phones Without Getting Screwed
I've seen my fair share of heartbreaks when it comes to used phones. As a repair tech, I often had to try and help out customers who bought used handsets which turned out to be useless, either because it was stolen or not working on their carrier's network. More often than not, there was very little I could do. To help you from being stuck in the same situation, here are some tips to prevent you from getting scammed out of your hard earned money when buying a used handset.
Video: PokéLens—A HoloLens Concept Game with Project Downloads
Ready to finally play some Pokémon on your HoloLens? Here is your chance! KennyWdev has released a video showing off his newest build of PokéLens, a Pokémon clone for the HoloLens similar to Pokémon GO. In the video, you get to see two Pokémon battle it out on what appears to be an office floor. Apparently, Pikachu is "super effective." This coincidentally appeared online the same day that another developer, Sky Zhou, showed off his Smash Brothers-style Pokémon game.
News: My First Hackathon—What It Took to Win HoloHack Atlanta
Beginners luck is a phrase I have always hated. But really, beginners luck comes down to not letting your experience in something get in the way of the idea.
News: Osterhout Design Group Just Raised $58 Million—We'll See Why at CES 2017
As we slowly approach its January 3 start date, CES 2017 seems to be shaping up to be an exciting year for smart glasses as well as augmented and mixed reality.
News: Brenda Freeman Leaves Behind TV & Film to Join Magic Leap as CMO
Today, December 7, it was officially announced that Magic Leap has found their replacement for the recently departed Brian Wallace. Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz has tapped Brenda Freeman, former EVP and Chief Marketing Officer of National Geographic Channel, as their new Chief Marketing Officer.
News: HoloToolkit's Expanded Spatial Mapping Capabilities on HoloLens Now Open Source
For those of us that were blown away by the spatial mapping and user experience in Fragments and Young Conker, the version of spatial mapping that came stock in the HoloToolkit was lackluster at best. It became apparent really quick that to get an amazing presentation would require some heavy shader knowledge and some badass mesh culling skills, at the very least.
News: Samsung Seems Set to Eliminate Beloved Features with the Galaxy S8
The rumor train for Samsung's upcoming flagship phone is now running on full steam, and some of its cargo (or lack thereof) might not be warmly welcomed by many when it finally pulls into the station.
How To: Take Partial Screenshots on Android
Being able to take screenshots on Android isn't something we were always able to do. It was added to stock Android in Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 (Gingerbread 2.3, if you were a Samsung TouchWiz user) as a simple full screen screenshot, and that's the way it's remained ever since—until now.
News: Google's Pixel Sales Have Already Surpassed HTC, LG & Motorola
Google has a new smartphone, and if you own a TV or a computer, you've almost certainly heard about it. The ad campaign for the Pixel and Pixel XL is approaching iPhone levels of omnipresence, as Google has reportedly spent over $3.2 million on marketing, with that number expected to skyrocket in the coming months.
News: Concept Video Shows Just How Impressive Pokémon Battles Can Be on the HoloLens
Regular HoloLens developer and YouTuber Sky Zhou, a founding member of mixed reality studio Matrix Inception, has done it again. With an Xbox One controller in hand, watch as he makes these Pokémon battle it out Super Smash Brothers-style in his HoloLens app.
News: HoloLens App Muralize Combines Art & Technology—From an All-Female Developer Team
One thing you'll find a lot of in the Windows Store for HoloLens is demos and mockups, but very few projects are as fully realized and fully-functioning as Muralize. Created by Magnopus, an all-female development team, Muralize first appeared in the Windows Store in late-November of 2016, and makes it easy and fun to create real-life murals using a HoloLens.
News: These Pictures Show How the Note7's Death Could Have Been Avoided
The Note7 fireworks bonanza was unprecedented in scope. A recent report suggests that Samsung could lose upwards of $20 billion in lost profit due to this fiasco.
How To: Everything You Need to Know About Insuring Your Android Phone
As a former repair tech, I've heard the same reasons over and over as to why people opt not to purchase phone insurance. Some cite the cost—why pay extra every month for insurance when you're careful with your phone? Deductibles are expensive, so why not just spend that money on a repair instead of getting a refurbished phone as a replacement?
How To: Dropped Your Phone in Water? Here's How to Keep Your Wet Android or iPhone from Being Water Damaged
When it comes to busted smartphones, liquid damage ranks right up there with shattered screens as one of the most common issues owners have to deal with—as well as the most embarrassing. Thankfully, though, with the rise of waterproof phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S7 and even the iPhone 7, this is becoming less and less of a worry. But not everyone has a waterproof device.
News: Linux Kernel Exploits Aren't Really an Android Problem
It seems like a new, dangerous Android exploit is uncovered every month or two. The latest headliners are NightMonkey and Chronos from the list of CIA hacks reported by Wikileaks, which have been billed as gaping security holes in the world's biggest mobile operating system.
News: ThyssenKrupp's Smart Cities-Themed HoloHack Starts December 2nd in Atlanta
This weekend, Atlanta, Georgia will be the battleground for a large group of HoloLens designers and developers. HoloHack, a 24-hour hackathon put on by elevator manufacturer ThyssenKrupp, will be taking place at The Garage, and the design theme will be smart cities.
News: Two Doctors Simplify Spinal Surgery with the HoloLens
True innovation tends to come from the places we least expect as developers. The Microsoft HoloLens is still a very new product, and some of the other headsets are still just ideas, so the rules for mixed reality are not set in stone. That means all the real problems to be solved are yet to come.
How To: Download Videos from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter & More with Just One Tap
Most websites prevent you from saving embedded videos, but if you have the Xposed Framework installed on your Android device, a cool module from developer Ashish Bansal will now let you download almost any video. The way it works is simple—just start playing a video in your favorite web browser, then you'll see a notification that lets you download the source file in one tap.
How To: Center Your Pixel XL's Status Bar Clock, iPhone-Style
There's one thing that I've always liked about iPhones, and that's their centered digital clock in the status bar at the top of the screen. On Android, it's always on the right side by default, and there's no easy setting that lets you just change it to the center position. But if you have a Google Pixel XL, there's a simple modification you can perform to get exactly that—a centered status bar clock.
News: Boeing Is Fighting Wildfires with the Microsoft HoloLens & Large Drones
Fighting fires has always been a dangerous and noble venture, even with the proliferation of aerial firefighting. But things are looking to get a lot safer for firefighters with the help of the Boeing and mixed reality.
News: Unity 5.5 Is Out Now & Officially Supports HoloLens Development
Microsoft and Unity have been working closely to make sure that HoloLens and Windows Holographic are supported closely with the popular game engine. Unity released a special HoloLens Technical Preview version earlier this year based off of Unity 5.4, but the update today of the main Unity app, version 5.5, has all those Holographic enhancements built right in.
DIY Repair: How to Fix Your Broken Smartphone Like a Pro
In my days as a hardware tech, I often came across motivated do-it-yourselfers who watched a video or two on how to repair a phone and thought that they'd give it a go. More often than not, they failed miserably and damaged their phones (and wallets) even more in the process.
How To: Get the Pixel's Frosted Dock Background on Marshmallow
Google made an entirely new launcher for its Pixel devices, and it's got a lot of cool features such as a swipe gesture to open your app drawer and an entire home screen page dedicated to Google search. We've already shown you how to get this so-called Pixel Launcher on other devices, but there was always one feature that was missing.
News: Alibaba Leads InfinityAR's Latest $18M Round—Diversifying Their Augmented Reality Portfolio
China's e-commerce site Alibaba has been making heavy investments in augmented and mixed reality startups. In February of this year, they led a $793 million round of Series C financing of Magic Leap. And now they've just invested in Israeli-based InfinityAR, which acquired $18 million in its Series C financing.
How To: Block Contact Request Spam on Skype Automatically
Skype is one of the most popular messaging and video chat services for a good reason—it's packed to the brim with tons of cool features. But one bit of functionality that Microsoft left out is the ability to block friend requests from people that aren't in your contacts, which can lead to a lot of unwanted notifications from spammers and bots.
Tips from a Tech: Save Money on iPhone Repairs by Knowing Your Options
Oh no... your precious iPhone is in shambles. Maybe you shattered your screen after a crazy night of celebrating, or maybe your two-year-old jabbed a toy into your iPhone's charging port, completely destroying it in the process. Now what? Do you take it to a repair shop, or go to an Apple Store to have it fixed? This brief article will help you weigh your options.
News: Holographic Remoting—What It Is & Why It Makes the HoloLens So Much Better
The HoloLens is the world's first untethered holographic head-mounted computer, which Microsoft has been rather proud of—and they have every reason to be. Of course, as soon as we developers get adjusted to the idea of keeping the scope of our projects inside the bounds of the HoloLens' processing power, Microsoft hits us with the Holographic Remoting Player.
News: Microsoft Research Shows Off Mobile Holoportation
In recent years, wave after wave of technological advancement has led us down roads that are beginning to look more and more like science fiction stories. In their efforts to bring us from science fiction to science fact, Microsoft Research showed us a new communication medium called Holoportation earlier this year—and now they have found a way to make this highly complex holographic system far more mobile.
News: The Scaling Ratios Every HoloLens Dev Should Know for Clean Text in Mixed Reality
Designing for mixed reality, especially for the HoloLens, can present unique challenges. Dong Yoon Park, a Principal UX Designer at Microsoft with a passion for typography, recently gave a talk to the Windows Holographic Users Group Redmond (WinHUGR) about the pitfalls he ran into trying to convert what started out as a 2D iOS app 5 years ago to the newer 3D Holographic frontier with Unity.
How To: Create a Contextual Smart Folder on Your Home Screen That Always Knows What Apps You Want
An app from the development team at ts-apps has the potential to make your Android device smarter than it's ever been. At first glance, you'd think it's just an ordinary home screen folder—but depending on what you're doing at a given time, the folder can show a completely different set of apps.
How To: Add a Google Photos Shortcut to Your Android's Camera App
If your Android phone was made by Samsung, LG, HTC, or any other manufacturer that likes to apply skins on top of stock Android, then your camera app is tied to the custom gallery app that was preinstalled on your device. In other words, when you tap that little image preview icon after taking a picture, you'll be taken to a camera roll interface that was made by an electronics manufacturer.
News: Augmented Reality Helps Dutch Police Out on Crime Scenes
Dutch police are using a system very similar to Pokémon GO on smartphones, but they aren't walking around trying to catch little pocket monsters. The purpose of this system is to give augmented reality help to first responders who may be less qualified to work a fresh crime scene. If successful, the idea of a contaminated crime scene could be a thing of the past.