Hot Gadget Hacks Posts
How To: New to Arduino? Start with This Simple RC Car Controlled by Your Android Device
Thanks to its open-source platform and easy-to-use hardware and software, there's literally thousands of Arduino projects detailed online for anyone to make—a magic mirror, DIY polygraph machine, and hotel-hacking dry erase marker just being a few examples. Hell, you can even make the Daft Punk helmet.
How To: Cycle Safer with This DIY Turn Signal Backpack, Complete with Accelerometer-Activated Brake Lights
If you ride your bike or motorcycle a lot, especially in a large city, you've probably had a few close calls. No matter how safely you're driving, you never know what other people are going to do, and being on a smaller vehicle makes you difficult to see.
News: How to Make a $25 Touchscreen
In this episode of Mike's Lab, we will be creating our own touchscreen! Video: .
How To: Theme a TouchWiz ROM on Your Samsung Galaxy S3 Using Morphology
One of the best aspects of Android is its customization options. You can change launchers and icons, add widgets, and replace standard apps with others that allow full customization. Android allows your device to really take on your personality, from the inside and out.
How To: Root the New Sony Xperia Z Android Phone
Sony's Xperia Z, which has generated quite a deal of excitement since its launch at the CES in Las Vegas last month, is already sold out in France with its expected U.S. release to be sometime in March. It's 5-inch, 1080p display puts it up there with some of the best smartphones in the market. It runs on Jelly Bean 4.1.2 and comes with expandable storage. Also, the Z comes with an incredible 13MP rear camera with the capability to dish out 9MP photos at 14fps, shooting roughly 999 stills in ...
How To: Work Around the Copy/Paste Bug on the Samsung Galaxy S3, Note 2, and Other TouchWiz Devices
If you have a Samsung Galaxy S3 or Galaxy Note 2, you might not have noticed it yet, but there's an annoying little bug that centers around your clipboard. If you tend to do a lot of copy/pasting on your device, you've probably seen it happen—your phone crashes.
How To: Lose Your Connection? This Add-On for Chrome and Firefox Helps You Recover Missing Text and Erased Forms
We've all had that awful, sinking feeling when something you've been typing away at is suddenly gone. Maybe you accidentally hit the Back button, lost your internet connection, or your computer crashed, but whatever the reason, losing your work totally sucks. A lot of word processing programs have a built-in auto-save feature to prevent you from losing everything, but most websites and blogs haven't gotten there yet. An extension for Chrome and Firefox called Lazarus: Form Recovery can help y...
How To: This Arduino 'Loudness Guard' Caps Your TV's Volume to Banish Annoyingly Loud Commercials
Have you ever fallen asleep watching television only to be rudely awoken by one of those obnoxious commercials that randomly play three times as loud as everything else? While the FCC actually made excessively loud commercials illegal as of last December, it's up to providers to comply, so the problem will probably take a while to go away.
How To: Google Is Now Accepting Applications for Adventurous Glass Explorers: What Would You Do If You Had Glass?
Google Glass, the augmented reality head-mounted display, has sent ripples through the technology world ever since its inception in 2012—even warranting Time Magazine to recognize it as one of the "Best Inventions of the Year 2012". Today, Google announced that it’s now opening up an exclusive opportunity to become a Glass Explorer. What this entails is that if you're chosen to be a Glass Explorer, you'll have the opportunity to purchase one Glass device, long before it becomes available to t...
How To: Make a Difference in Your Neighborhood with This Urban DIY Glowing Bollard Crosswalk
Walking the streets at night can be uncomfortably dangerous. In 2010, there were 32,885 motor vehicle deaths in the United States. Of those, roughly 13%, or 4,280, were pedestrians. Two-thirds of those pedestrian deaths occurred at nighttime. Along with darkness, drivers also have to deal with rain and other harsh weather conditions. Combined, all of these factors can be very dangerous for anyone taking a walk at night. As it happens, pedestrian deaths are on the rise since 2009.
How To: use private Browse in Android?
Step 1: New User for Android System in Galaxy Note 2..Need Advice for How to Protect My Privacy
How To: Get Talk-to-Text on Your Jailbroken iPhone with the Siri Clone Sara
My obsession with Siri is well documented, and after I jailbroke my iPhone 4 recently, I thought I would finally be able to rekindle our imaginary love. But, when I downloaded the Siri Port, I found that the app was buggy and super slow.
News: The New HTC One Is Coming Soon...
Here's the first look commercial straight from HTC on their new HTC One device, with a full metal body, BlinkFeed, Zoe, BoomSound, and more.
How To: It's Now Against the Law to Unlock Your Mobile Phone—Here's How to Help Make It Legal Again! [UPDATED]
UPDATE: The whitehouse petition has received enough signatures to require a response from the government. Your voices have been heard! Now we wait...
How To: Install the WhatsApp Messenger onto Your Nexus 7 and Sync It with Your Phone Number
WhatsApp is a very popular messaging app on the Play Store, but unfortunately, tablet users have been left out of all the fun because WhatsApp only works on smartphones—until now.
How To: Keep the Display Off When Receiving a Notification on Your Samsung Galaxy Note 2
As is the case with most smartphones, the Samsung Galaxy Note 2's screen turns on whenever you receive a text or picture message. While having the screen turn on when you receive a notification is handy to have (especially when the phone is on silent), it isn't always preferable. Having your screen turn on for every notification can be quite the distraction, especially at work or school. I find myself watching the screen turn on from the corner of my eye, then rushing over to it and see who t...
How To: This Predictive Text App Is So Accurate You Don't Even Need to Look at Your Phone to Type
Who doesn't hate Auto Correct? There's nothing worse than hitting 'Send' only to realize that your phone betrayed you by changing a word so that your message doesn't even mean the same thing anymore—especially when it's going to someone like your boss or parents.
How To: Reply to Messages While You're Busy with SMS Replier for Android
At a time when virtually everyone has a cell phone, it's almost inconceivable to think of a time when we're without them. At work, in bed, and even in the bathroom; we're always with our smartphones. I mean, hell, someone even designed a way to bring your smartphone into the freaking shower. It's not THAT serious.
SWEAT: A Better Way to Edit and Replace Your Text in Windows 8
Editing and formatting large amounts of text can be a hassle. From finding and replacing words to creating uniform spacing, text editing can be a real drag. But with this Windows application, you can take your text edit skills to the next level.
Passcode Exploit: How to Bypass the Lock Screen on an iPhone Running iOS 6.1
Even though iOS 6.1 was only released a couple of weeks ago, hackers released evasi0n a couple days after. Evasi0n, the only iPhone 5 jailbreak currently on the market, is the most popular jailbreak in history—with nearly 7 million iOS devices already hacked in the mere four days after its release. Well, now it seems that iOS 6.1 is being taken advantage of again, this time with a simple exploit figured out by YouTube user S1riOS6, which lets you bypass the lock screen on an iPhone running iO...
How To: Increase Battery Life on Your Nokia Lumia 920 and Other Windows Phone 8 Devices
It doesn't really matter what kind of cell phone you have—battery life is one of the most important features for any electronic device. We've written tons of articles on how to get better battery life from your Android, iPhone, Kindle, and more, but we've never really covered Windows Phones before—until now. The Nokia Lumia 920 and other devices running Windows Phone 8 suffer from battery problems just like any other mobile device. So, if you've got one in your hands that can't seem to make i...
How To: Siri Who? Meet Winston—Your Own Personal News and Social Media Butler
Unless you're a business executive or movie star, most of us aren't afforded the luxury of having a personal assistant. Wouldn't it be nice to wake up in the morning and just have everything taken care of?
How To: Does Your iOS 6 or 6.1 Device Have a Tethered Jailbreak? Covert It to Untethered with This Hack
Ever since the release of iOS 6 for the iPhone in late September last year, people had been itching for the subsequent jailbreak. While the untethered jailbreak was released on Super Bowl Sunday this past February 3rd, many others couldn't wait and jailbroke their iPhones with a tethered version from Redsn0w.
How To: Speed Up Downloads and Uploads for Kim Dotcom's New MEGA When Using Firefox
Megaupload was one of the very first file-sharing sites I ever used. But since 2005, the beloved (and pretty gangster) Kim Dotcom, has been in a legal battle with the U.S. Justice Department over copyright infringement.
How To: Completely Back Up Your Samsung Galaxy S3 Using Windows
Forum member Luciano posted a terrific guide on adding hacks to our phone by editing build.prop. The article was great, but one of best things I saw in it was the "What You'll Need" section:
How To: Search the iOS App Store More Efficiently with uQuery
If you have an iOS device, chances are you've spent a decent amount of time in the App Store—without at least a few apps, smartphones are pretty boring. There's an app to do just about anything you could ask for, but the problem is finding them. Searching the App Store sucks.
How To: Tweak Your Samsung Galaxy S3's Performance with These "Build.prop" Android Hacks
One of the best things about the Samsung Galaxy S3 is the ability to modify the device in countless ways, as with any other Android device.
How To: Take Free Online Courses for Real College Credit
The internet is a great place to find information for pretty much anything you can think of. So why shouldn't it be a place for official higher learning? I'm not talking about a course in Wikipedia or SparkNotes, but real colleges offering real college courses completely online. And guess what—it's FREE.
How To: Reduce Battery Drain on Your Samsung Galaxy S3 by Fixing Android System Usage
The Jelly Bean update brought a lot of cool features to the Samsung Galaxy S3, but one nasty bug remained. Something was causing "Android System" usage to be consistently high. Of course, the percentage of this process that is used is dependent on what you're doing at any given time, but it shouldn't be anywhere near this level with "standard" use (calls, texts, emails, light browsing, etc.).
Super Backup: The Fastest Way to Back Up All of the Data on Your Android Device
Advancements to Android's open source OS come in the form of ROMs and mods, available all over the web for anyone to find. Installing any of these modifications tends to wipe your phone clean, causing you to lose all of the precious data on your device.
How To: Earn Achievements on Your Android Device for Charging Your Phone, Installing Apps, and Other Daily Tasks
If I could win a trophy for waking up to go to work or for eating a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats without any of the biscuits getting soggy, I think my life would be so much more awesome. The gaming industry has cornered the market when it comes to achievement-based rewards, because they know that we love challenges.
How To: ROOT Samsung Galaxy S3 for AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile
The advantages of rooting are vast. From free wi-fi tethering, being on the latest and greatest software, theming all aspects of the OS, to ditching Touchwiz for a pure Google experience and much much more.
How To: Add On-Screen Buttons to Your TouchWiz ROM (Root Required)
Samsung bucked the trend and threw hard keys onto the Galaxy S3 while most manufacturers are going the soft key route. This hack will add on-screen buttons to your TouchWiz-based ROM. You'll need a root file manager with a system writable text editor—I recommend ES File Explorer for this, but feel free to use whatever you want. If using ES, hit Menu, Settings, go down to Root Settings, and check Root Exploerer, Up to Root, and Mount File System.
How To: 5 Must-Know Tips for Not Getting Scammed on Craigslist When Buying or Selling
Craigslist is probably the greatest site ever created, and I'm just talking about it's classified section, both awesome and amazingly creepy. Seriously, spend 20 minutes scrolling through the personals and you'll never want to take your eyes off the screen. But I digress—Craigslist is also one of the most convenient places to buy and sell pretty much anything you can think of. I've used it to buy my bed, my old bike (which was stolen!), and my couch. And while Craigslist is great in many ways...
How To: Scrub the EXIF Data from Photos on Your Android Phone Before Sharing Them
We've talked before about EXIF data—or metadata—attached to photos and how it can expose information about your location, what type of device you're using, and even the device or camera's unique identification number.
How To: Add Captions to a YouTube Video
Captioning your YouTube videos not only makes them more acessable for the hearing impaired, but they also make the contents of your video more accessible to YouTube. Once YouTube knows exactly what is being said it your video you will be more likely to rank when people search for related words or phrases.
How To: Crazy Dad Enters Guinness World Records with Fastest Baby Stroller Ever (50+ MPH!)
Babies are pretty cool. They do whatever they want, have beautiful women drool all over them, and have more one-on-one boob action than any grown man (or woman) I know.
How To: Hide Your Video Watching History on YouTube
There are many reasons for wanting to hide your viewing history. Some are legit, others are not so pure of heart, so here is how to do it.
How To: Load Scripts Faster on Your Webpage
This may be an old trick, but it is still very useful. Head.js proudly proclaims that it is the only script you need in your head. You can use it to parallel load all your scripts. This is much faster than loading them one by one.
How To: Monitor Changes in Your Favorite Website's Terms of Service with Docracy's TOS Tracker
Every so often, a big site will make a change to its terms of service that's not so great for its users—without even informing them—and they (understandably) get really pissed off. Recent examples are Facebook's and Instagram's changes, which resulted in user backlash.