Gadget Hacks Features

News: One Magic Leap Mystery Solved—Former Senior Dev Paul Reynolds Confirms Unity & Unreal

After many months of endless speculation over the mysterious augmented reality platform Magic Leap, software engineers worldwide have been waiting for any news of what development environment this amazing technology might use. Thanks to Paul Reynolds, the former Magic Leap Senior Director of SDKs and Apps, we no longer have to guess. Just like existing mixed, augmented, and virtual reality platforms, developers will be able to use their experience with Unity and the UNREAL engine.

How To: Text a Girl Like a Boss

Who needs to talk to a girl when you can just text them? I mean, am I right? There's even a movie about a guy who falls in love with a girl inside his cell phone (and it actually looks pretty good too). For all you clowns, the girl is not actually inside of his phone.

How To: You Can Play the New Westworld Mobile Game on Your iPhone Right Now — Here's How

HBO's Westworld has touched down on iOS as a mobile game, giving players the chance to manage their very own futuristic theme park set in the wild west. Unfortunately, the game is currently only available in select countries as a soft launch until its fully developed. But if you'd like to try out this game right now, there's a simple workaround to get Westworld on your iPhone.

How To: Listen to Text Messages and Other Notifications While Driving—Without Touching Your Phone

The car is arguably one of the worst places to receive a text message. You know you can't resist looking, and when you do, your attention is no longer on driving, it's on reading the latest gossip or whatever. You take your eyes of the road for just a few seconds and you could get an expensive ticket, or even worse—an accident. But you can't just ignore that notification sound or vibration, can you? So, if you just have to know what it says right then and there, why not at least do it in a sa...

Great Deal: Free Facebook Timeline Business Cards

When you're meeting new people, chances are they're no longer interested in collecting your phone number or email address. Instead, they're more interested to see if you have a Facebook account. So, what's a better way to get connected online in the offline world than a business card of your Facebook Timeline? The new cover image and info section on your profile makes for a great Facebook business (or personal) card.

How To: Use the GasBuddy Mobile App to Find the Cheapest Prices in Town

Gas prices across the United States have skyrocketed, with today's national average for regular unleaded gas at $3.51 a gallon, with California leading the pack at $3.90 a gallon. AAA reports that last week's national average was just $3.37. That's a $0.14 increase in just one week! Just one month ago, the average was $3.12. A year ago—$2.75 a gallon. Actually, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) states the price of gas hasn't been this high since since 2008 when it hit $3.57 in ...

How To: Find longitude and latitude coordinates in Google Maps

Learn how to view longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates on a Google Maps-generated map. This brief video tutorial from the folks at Butterscotch will teach you everything you need to know. For more information, including detailed, step-by-step instructions, and to get started finding GPS coordinates on Google Maps yourself, take a look.

How To: Beat level 7-2 of Angry Birds with three stars

Need help figuring out how to get three stars on Theme 7, Level 2 of Rovio's Angry Birds for Android/iPhone? See how it's done with this gamer's guide, which presents a complete walkthrough of the process. With the right technique, you'll find it quite easy to beat. For more information, and to get started beating level 7-2 of this whimsical puzzle game on your own Android phone, iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, watch this helpful video guide.

How To: Transfer Your Facebook Friends to Google+ (And Vice Versa)

On the same day that Google launched their new social network, Google +, a team of Google engineers calling themselves the Data Liberation Front announced their first service on Tuesday—Google Takeout, a product that allows users to easily move their data in and out of Google products, including Buzz, Contacts and Circles, Picasa Web Albums, Profile and Stream (the equivalent of Facebook’s newsfeed).

How To: The Easiest Way to Create GIFs on Your iPhone

A pen is mightier than the sword, but a picture is worth a thousand words. That's why I tend to use more emoji and GIFs than actual text in messages. They visualize my emotions like words could never do, and now more so than ever thanks to apps like iMoji, which lets you create custom emoji icons from photos. But what about custom GIFs? For that, there's Camoji.

How To: Drag tabs to get a side-by-side view in Google Chrome

For anyone working in Google that wants to look at more page than one at a time, learn how to get a side-by-side view in the steps outlined in this tutorial. This technique utilizes Google Chrome. Before attempting to do this, you will need to download Google Chrome from Google Chrome webpage. When you have two frames that you want to see side-by-side, simply take one of the tabs for one of the screens with your cursor and drag it to the side. After doing this, your two screens will pop up ne...

NR50: Next Reality's 50 People to Watch in Augmented & Mixed Reality

Throughout this NR50 series, we have talked about the incredible growth the augmented and mixed reality space has seen in the last year. More devices, software, developers, and use-cases seem to arrive daily. For this growth to have occurred, it took the work of many people, from many different backgrounds and skill sets — and Next Reality wants to recognize them for all that they have done and are doing.

How To: Jailbreak ANY iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad on ANY Firmware!

www.jailbreakme.com has recently created a new way to Jailbreak any iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad, regardless of the firmware it is running. It is EXTREMELY easy! If you were thinking about Jailbreaking, but were afraid you did not have the technical abilities to do so, now you can! What is "Jailbreaking?"When someone says that their iPod, iPhone, or iPad is "jailbroken," they mean that they have installed Cydia, a third-party app store.Why Jailbreak? Why not just stick with the original App St...

How To: Control an iPhone from a computer

In this tutorial, we learn how to control an iPhone from a computer. First, go to Google and search for "real vnc". Then, download and install the program. Now, go to your iPhone and open the program "Cydia" up. Once opened, search for a program called "veency" and download and install it. After you reboot, click on "settings", then "wi-fi", then "select your connection", and find what your IP address is. Next open "VNC viewer" on your laptop, and type in the IP address you just got from your...

DIY Portable Power Pack: Turn Your Backpack into a Solar-Powered Gadget Charger

A smartphone is pretty much useless with a dead battery. When you're out and about, it can be hard to find a place to plug in (if you remembered your charger, that is). But this DIY solar panel backpack made by electrical engineer Theodore Protasiewicz will help you use the scorching sun to your advantage and make sure that your gadgets are always ready to go. Theodore started with just a normal backpack, some solar panels, 18 gauge wire, and a USB port and hacked it into a traveling solar ch...

How To: Setup a free VPN with itshidden.com

This video tutorial tells you how to create a free VPN with the website itshidden.com. The first step in creating your VPN on itshidden.com is to make an account on itshidden.com. Register with your own username and password. Then when you've made an account log in to it so that you can use the rest of the website. Next you go to control panel, and then network setup. Then you will have to click through the instructions in order to create a new network. Next you will have to create a new conn...

How To: Get free stuff

There is a web site that you can go to and get stuff that is absolutely free from anywhere in the world. The web site is called www.craigslist.org and the first thing you do is choose your country and your state. Kipkay demonstrates.