Gadget Hacks News

News: Your Smartphone's Fingerprint Scanner Can Easily Be 'Hacked' with a Printer

Using a fingerprint scanner to keep intruders out of your phone might not be as secure as you think. Two researchers from Michigan State University, Kai Cao and Anil K. Jain, developed a relatively cheap and effective way to beat fingerprint readers, and successfully tested their method on a Samsung Galaxy S6 and Huawei Honor 7.

News: Facebook Messenger App Now Has Material Design

Facebook is finally pushing out the latest version of its Messenger app for Android, complete with a new Material Design user interface.

Limited Time Only: Google Play Apps & Games on Sale for a Dollar

Now is the time to act if you've been in the market for some must-have Android apps but felt like the price was a little out of your range. The Google Play Store is running a sale so you can pick up some high-quality paid apps—including the popular Nova Launcher Prime and Poweramp Music Player, among many others—for just $0.99 each. While there are quite a few solid apps here you should try—and with a two-hour refund window, why not try them all—here are our favorites you should seriously con...

HoloLens Feature: Voice Input

Like Gesture Input, Voice Input allows you to act on the focus of your Gaze. However, the commands you can use with Voice Input are only limited by your imagination.

News: How to Use a Roku, Fire Stick, or Chromecast on Hotel TVs

Although lots of the bigger hotel chains are lessening the restrictions they put on their room TVs, some smaller ones are still taking measures to prevent you from plugging in computers or streaming devices into an HDMI port. However, there are a few steps you can take to bypass these restrictions and watch your own media in a hotel that has restricted TVs.

HoloLens Feature: Gesture Input

Gesture Input works hand-in-hand with Gaze Input. If you think of Gaze Input like a mouse cursor, Gesture Input is how you "click" in HoloLens—which Microsoft calls "tapping." It's kind of like a touchpad, only in 3D.

HoloLens Feature: Spatial Sound

The HoloLens's visuals are justifiably getting most of the pre-launch hype, but sound plays just as important of a role in creating immersion in your mixed-reality.

News: Hilarious MSQRD App Comes to Android (Try It Out Now!)

MSQRD (aka Masquerade), the popular iOS app that lets you put silly faces on top of selfies, is finally making its way over to Android.

News: Zelda's Link Comes to Google Maps

An HD remake of The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess arrived today for Nintendo's Wii U, and Google is celebrating the occasion by swapping in Link—the protagonist of the Legend of Zelda series—for the regular yellow Pegman on Google Maps.

News: Leaked Images Show Off the Upcoming HTC 10

Press renders for HTC's latest phone leaked out this morning, and it turns out that it likely won't be called the One M10 as many had expected. Instead, the company seems to be trying to clean up its naming conventions, and the next phone will simply be called HTC 10.

Deal Alert: Get a Free Wireless Charger from Samsung

Samsung is running a promotion to get people interested in using Samsung Pay, and if you sign up now you can get one of their wireless charging pads for free. The promo is only available to new users, but signing up is easy, and you don't even need to make a purchase to receive the charging pad—you just have to add an eligible card to Samsung Pay.

HoloLens Feature: Spatial Mapping

Once you've designed some holograms with HoloLens, you'll need to get them to interact with the environment. That's where Spatial Mapping comes in. There are five basic purposes for using HoloLens's Spatial Mapping with your app:

News: Drop That Kindle—Amazon Removes Encryption Support for Fire Tablets (Update: It's Coming Back)

If you have personal information stored on a Kindle Fire tablet, be warned that Amazon has removed encryption support for Fire OS 5. So if you have stuff on these devices...maybe a risque book, or private notes, or pictures you'd rather not let out to the world, now would be the time to remove them. And unless Amazon changes its mind and re-enables encryption, don't use your device for anything personal, as anyone who gets a hold of it will be able to gain access to everything on it.

News: Google Will Soon Let You Pay for Things with Your Face

Google has begun the testing phase for its new Hands Free app that lets you pay at participating locations without having to even take your phone out of your pocket.

Today Only: Linkin Park's 'Hybrid Theory' Album Free on Google Play

Here's some good news if you were hankering for a little early-2000s electronic-scream-rap-metal to get you through the day. Linkin Park's debut release, Hybrid Theory, the 48th best-selling album of all time, is available for free on the Google Play Store. Hate to break it to everybody abroad, but it looks like the album is free only to users in the U.S.

News: Save Money with These Awesome Freebies from Your Cellular Provider

Cellular carriers like to nickel-and-dime us out of every bit of money they can feasibly justify, so as consumers, we owe it to ourselves to make sure that we're getting our money's worth.

News: DIY 3D-Printed Arduino Robot

This is a nice project that you can continue to work on and modify as you learn more Arduino projects. The Instructable linked below goes through the complete build for the Bluetooth-enabled robot seen in the first half of the video.

News: Here's When Your Samsung Galaxy Is Getting Android 6.0 Marshmallow

It looks like a lot of Samsung's Galaxy series of smartphones and tablets will be upgraded to Android Marshmallow 6.0 by the start of this summer.

News: This Cable Can Charge Both Androids & iPhones

We've all been there—you're away from home, your phone's battery is quickly nearing zero, and you forgot to bring your charger. "Hey, does anybody have an iPhone charger?" you ask. Crickets. If you could understand cricket-speak, you'd know that they too were saying "Sorry, bud. We're all on Android."

News: 10 Awesome Android Apps You Won't Find on Google Play

As Android's official app provider, the Google Play Store is packed with thousands of useful programs. But Google's terms of service is extremely restrictive, which means that countless apps simply don't qualify to be hosted on the Google Play Store.

News: With HoloLens Your Gaze Is Your Mouse

HoloLens users will have a handful of ways to interact with the mixed-reality, holographic world. Gaze Input lets the user control a cursor in their field of vision. In other words, it's essentially a mouse that you control by looking around.

News: Chevy Annouces Free Update That Brings Android Auto to 12 More Cars & Trucks

Now that Android Auto and Apple CarPlay have finally arrived, the days of clunky in-dash infotainment systems are coming to an end. Instead of using software created by an automotive company to get directions, stream music, or take calls, we can now get the best user experience Silicon Valley has to offer—all while sitting comfortably in the driver's seat.

News: McDonald's Is Making Happy Meal Boxes That Transform into VR Headsets

Another day, another company hopping on the virtual reality bandwagon. Today, it's fast food behemoth McDonald's, which is testing limited edition Happy Meal boxes that you can turn into a VR headset by punching out a couple holes and tearing along a few perforated seams. The resulting headset is a lot like Google Cardboard, with the lingering scent of fry grease.

Breaking: Judge Rules in Favor of Apple Over Feds

A judge just handed down a ruling that will make the U.S. government's quest to unlock the work iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters much more difficult.

News: Why Samsung & Other Phone Makers Need to Stop Messing with Android

On the list of problems with Android, manufacturer tinkering ranks near the top. Slow or nonexistent updates, poor performance, excessive bloatware apps—all of these things can be attributed to manufacturer skins like TouchWiz or Sense, and none of them are issues with unmodified, Vanilla Android devices like the Nexus series.

News: The People at Boston Dynamics Are Going to Kill Us All

I'm starting to wonder if the people at Boston Dynamics have ever watched a Terminator movie. Not just because the robotics company with the oxymoronic name develops machines that are able to move around environments with animal- and human-like agility, but because the people testing them seem to take such joy in openly antagonizing their creations. It's one thing to tempt fate by creating superhuman robots that could potentially end mankind. You've reached a whole new level of hubris when yo...

News: Face Swapping Is Just Nuts

By now, you've likely used or have seen friends and family use Face Swap Live on their phones. It's a fun little app for iOS (and soon to be Android) that harnesses current tech to—you guessed it—swap faces.

News: You Can Now Color in Your Own Google Logo

Google is pushing out an update for its namesake Google app that lets you get a little creative with the way the Google logo appears. You'll be able to add your own color scheme to the Google logo, and include colors beyond the traditional blue, red, yellow, etc.

News: Microsoft Cancels Plans to Bring Android Apps to Windows Mobile

A little less than a year after announcing "Project Astoria," Microsoft announced Thursday, February 25th, that it will end the "Bridge," which would have brought Android apps to the Windows Store.

Oscars 2016: How to Watch the 88th Academy Awards Live Online

Coverage for the 88th Academy Awards, aka the Oscars, will air live this Sunday, February 28th at 4 p.m. PT (7 p.m. ET). The ceremony itself, hosted by Chris Rock, is set to begin at 5:30 p.m. PT (8:30 p.m. ET).

News: How to Use Speech-to-Text & Other Voice Commands in Google Docs

Google launched voice typing for Google Docs last Fall, and followed that up about six months later with voice commands that let you format and edit text as well. You can do things like select text, apply format settings like alignment and headings, and add and edit tables—all with your voice.

News: Night Mode Is Coming to Android!

For years, users have been clamoring for a "dark mode" theme in Android, but it has always seemed like Google is so committed to the white motif from their web services that such an option would never become a reality. But in a stunning turn of events, Google is finally embracing the idea with a night theme that will work in any app, and I'll cover all of the specifics below.

News: Facebook Reactions Are Live & Now You Can Die Happy

Have you ever run across a Facebook post that you don't necessarily want to "Like," but you're not really passionate enough about to bother stringing together a couple words for a comment? Well, you're in luck, as Facebook added five new "Reactions" that let you do more than just like a post, and they're now live for everyone.

News: How to Bold, Italicize, & Underline Text in Gmail for Android

Say you're out and about when suddenly you get the urge to write a strongly-worded email. You get the words down, but still feel like you could really hammer home the message with the right point of emphasis. Or maybe you just want to make absolutely sure that your recipient catches a certain detail. If you were on the mobile app, ALL CAPS was pretty much your only option other than crossing your fingers really hard.

News: Americans Are Media Consumption Machines—And It's Only Getting Worse

Over the course of the past century or so, media consumption has gone from a few readers enjoying their local print publication to billions of users viewing countless hours of video across the globe each day. This was a gradual evolution at first, but recent advancements in mobile connectivity have sent us into a climb the likes of which we have never seen before.

From 0 to 100% in 15 Minutes: The Fastest Phone Charger Ever

Chinese tech company OPPO has been on the cutting edge of smartphone battery charging since it released its VOOC Flash Charge in 2014. Using VOOC, you can charge your battery from 0-75% in 30 minutes.

News: How to Create Your Own Geofilters on Snapchat

Snapchat's Geofilters add a little flair to Snapchat, giving you the option to dress up your Snaps based on where you took them. They're so popular, in fact, that we even showed you how to pull Geofilters from locations outside of where you are.

News: Everything You Need to Know About the LG G5 Modular Smartphone

LG got in on the action at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona by unveiling its new G5 handset on Sunday, February 21st. It will be the first publicly available modular smartphone by a top tech giant.

News: Everything You Need to Know About the Samsung Galaxy S7 & S7 Edge

After months of speculation and sifting through rumors, Samsung finally unveiled its Galaxy S7 and S7 edge flagships, and they're pretty much what we had been anticipating. But just because there weren't any major surprises doesn't mean that it's not still exciting. Let's have a look.

Gadget Hacks' Wish List: Features We Want in Android N

Whatever you want to call it for now—Android Nutella, Android Nougat, or Android 7.0—the upcoming "N" release of Android will surely bring in tons of new features and functionality. We know it will be named after a dessert, and we know that Google uses an alphabetical naming system, so something starting with "N" is next in line after Android 6.0 Marshmallow.