Gadget Hacks News
News: GigSky Supports eSIM on Your iPhone for Easy Cellular Data When Traveling
With the iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR, Apple introduced dual-SIM capabilities to iOS, made possible by eSIM technology. If you recently picked up one of these three new iPhones and need to utilize your eSIM while traveling abroad, you might want to take a look at the data plans offered by GigSky.
News: Here's What's New with Samsung's Messages App in One UI
Samsung's version of Android Pie has landed on Galaxy handsets like the Note 9, S9, and S8, though we've known what to expect thanks to leaked beta versions of the software a few months back. The newly dubbed One UI has plenty of new features and improvements, but some of the first you might notice are the visual improvements to the default messaging app.
News: ABC News Elects to Add AR to Midterm Election Coverage
Election Day is like the Super Bowl for network and cable TV news, so ABC News is breaking out the big guns with a new augmented reality experience to win over eyeballs of viewers.
News: Niantic's Ingress Roots Get a Reboot with the Real World Platform
Ingress, the godfather of location based-AR games developed by Pokémon GO creator Niantic Labs, is getting a new lease on life via Ingress Prime, a reboot of the game built on the Niantic Real World Platform.
Samsung Android Pie Update: Galaxy Devices Are Getting All-New Home Screen Icons
With Android Pie beta now available for the Galaxy S9 and S9+, Samsung is well on its way to catching up to major competitors like the Google Pixel 3 in terms of giving its users the latest and greatest software Android has to offer. Of course, Samsung has added its own touches to the software to make Android Pie its own and set it apart from the rest of the crowd.
Market Reality: Apple's Acquisition of Leap Motion Fails, While Snapchat & Magic Leap Make AR Fashionable
This week, inside sources divulged details of how Apple nearly acquired Leap Motion, twice. Otherwise, companies offering or working on augmented reality technology had more successes than failures to talk about.
News: Niantic Demos Real World Platform & Spatial Audio Features for Pokémon GO & Ingress at Tokyo Conference
In the waning days of October, at the Innovation Tokyo 2018 conference, attendees got their hands on some of the new augmented reality experiences that Niantic is working on through its Real World Platform.
News: Walmart Turns Its iPhone App's Barcode Scanner into an Augmented Reality Price Comparison Tool
While many retailers have introduced try-before-you-buy features in their apps, Walmart has gone in another direction by bringing shoppers an augmented reality tool to help them compare products they want to buy.
News: ElementalX's Flar2 Talks 'Death' of Rooting & Future of Android
You can mod every aspect of your phone's software with root, but if you want to make changes at the hardware level, you'll need a custom kernel. If you've looked into custom kernels before, one name undoubtedly kept coming up: ElementalX. It's easily the best custom kernel out there, and the reason for that is its awesome developer, flar2, aka Aaron Segaert.
News: Magic Leap Conference Videos Dive Deeper into Medical, Audio, & AR Cloud Uses for Magic Leap One
It turns out that attending the L.E.A.P. conference last month may have mostly been best for demoing the Magic Leap One in person, as the company has now uploaded the majority of the insider panels held at the event in Los Angeles.
News: Noovie ARCade App Brings Wreck-It Ralph Movie Experience to Augmented Reality for Fans
One of the funniest scenes from the teaser trailer for the Wreck-It Ralph sequel is the basis for the new pre-show augmented reality experience via the Noovie ARCade app.
News: Apple Just Released the First Public Beta for iOS 12.1.1 with FaceTime Updates
Get ready for more software testing. Just two days after the official release of iOS 12.1, Apple seeded public software testers iOS 12.1.1 — one day after developers received the update. While the rest of the iOS world is just getting to know all of the cool, new 12.1 features, testers are now sinking their teeth into what the next iteration of iOS has to offer.
News: Samsung's Phone App Looks So Much Better on One UI
Android Pie has finally made its way to signature Galaxy devices like the Note 9, S9 and S8. As you all know, Samsung Experience got a major makeover and has been renamed to One UI, featuring significant aesthetic changes to many of its native apps.
PSA: Don't Buy the T-Mobile OnePlus 6T if You Want to Root
When OnePlus announced their partnership with T-Mobile and the deal the magenta carrier is set to offer, mouths dropped. But as usual, this deal comes with some caveats. The bulk of these will hurt the folks who love to root, something a large portion of the OnePlus community enjoys doing.
News: Investors Back Another AR Display Maker as LetinAR Closes $3.6 Million in Funding
Smartglasses and AR headset makers like Microsoft, Magic Leap, and Google (and aspiring AR wearables makers like Apple and Snapchat) need display components for their products, and LetinAR is among the companies ready to supply those components.
News: Apple Just Released the First iOS 12.1.1 Beta to Developers
Apple wastes no time with betas. Right on the heels of the official release of iOS 12.1, Apple released the first beta for iOS 12.1.1 to developers on Wednesday, Oct. 31. The update comes just one day after iOS 12.1, which itself was in beta development for 43 days this year. The denotation for 12.1.1 indicates it's a minor update over 12.1, and there are only a few things in its release notes.
News: Leap Motion Nearly Jumped on Board Apple's AR Train Twice, Report Says
In recent years, Apple has assembled its augmented reality team and supply chain through a series of acquisitions, high-profile hires, and strategic investments, but at least one potentially major deal was recently ditched.
News: Magic Leap Releases Series of Video Sessions from Inside the L.E.A.P. Conference
Magic Leap's recent L.E.A.P. conference was free to all who registered in time, but if you weren't able to make the trip to Hollywood, the company just released video of some of the sessions that took place over the course of two days.
News: Levi's Now Selling Exclusive Disney Denim Through Shoppable AR Lens on Snapchat
Snapchat continues to deepen its roster of clients adopting its Shoppable AR Lens, with clothing giant Levi's and Disney becoming the latest brands to try on the e-commerce platform for size.
News: Travelocity Transports Roaming Gnome into Augmented Reality with Its Mobile App
In the latest example of non-tech companies taking on augmented reality marketing, online travel site Travelocity has added an AR version of its Roaming Gnome mascot to its mobile app.
News: Apple Just Released iOS 12.1 with Group FaceTime, New Emoji & More
Apple released the first major iOS 12 update Tuesday, Oct. 30, just hours after the company's iPad and Mac presentation. While iOS 12.1 is the first official update to hit iPhones since iOS 12.0.1, beta testers had enjoyed an exclusive first-hand look at all the new features the latest OS has to offer. So what's new in iOS 12.1?
News: 4 Ways the OnePlus 6T Makes Rooting Easy
With the same starting price as its predecessor and a nice list of improvements, the OnePlus 6T is a great buy for a number of reasons. But for many Android users, the main selling point for the latest OnePlus flagship is how easy it will be to root and mod the device.
News: New York Times Halloween Edition Uses Augmented Reality Bugs to Scare & Educate
Our national month-long celebration of all things creepy and crawly comes to a climax on Wednesday with Halloween and will end with Día de Muertos on Friday, so now is the ideal time for the The New York Times to publish a mildly chilling augmented reality story for children.
News: The OnePlus 6T — a Few Additions and 1 Major Subtraction
In the battle for best stock Android flagships, there are really only two choices: Google Pixel phones and OnePlus phones. Although the latter isn't true stock Android, it is impressively close and usually paired with more impressive hardware than the Pixel lineup. The latest is the OnePlus 6T, which will be a bit controversial for fans this year.
News: Snapchat AR Lenses Jump from Mobile to Desktop with Snap Camera App
For the entirety of its existence, Snapchat has lived on mobile, but in its quest to lead the augmented reality industry, the company is now bringing those mobile AR experiences to desktops.
Market Reality: Lyft Acquires Blue Vision, Google & Samsung Invest in AR, & Epic Games Scores Massive Funding Round
With would-be unicorns Magic Leap and Niantic among its investments, Google is an active investor in augmented reality technology. This week, the search giant experienced both ends of the investment cycle, with an exit via Lyft's acquisition of Blue Vision Labs, and a funding round for Resolution Games.
News: Unreal Engine Maker Epic Games Lands $1.25 Billion Investment to Drive Future of Gaming & AR
While these days it is better known for the cross-platform gaming sensation Fortnite, Epic Games also makes Unreal Engine, one of the top development environments for 3D content and, in turn, augmented reality and virtual reality experiences.
News: Pokémon GO's New Ability to Track Steps in Background Is First Step Forward for Niantic's AR Cloud Platform
Niantic's most successful app, Pokémon GO, has become the first app to integrate the company's Real World Platform, the developer's AR cloud technology that enables multiplayer AR, persistent content, and occlusion with physical objects.
News: Moschino & H&M Harness the Power of Magic Leap One to Intro Augmented Reality to the Fashion World
Magic Leap has already entered the realm of entertainment and enterprise, but on now it has blazed its way into a new augmented reality frontier: fashion.
News: Magic Leap Updates Create App, Reveals Behind the Scenes Development at Magic Leap Studios
Among all the new Magic Leap app announcements made at the recent L.E.A.P. conference, an update to one of the company's major in-house apps went mostly unnoticed: Create 1.1.
News: Some Shiny New Pixel 3s Aren't Registering SIM Cards & Google Is Dragging Their Feet on a Fix
You just brought a brand new Pixel 3 from the Google Store, and you insert your SIM card only to find the phone won't recognize it at all. No matter what you do, the SIM card won't register and your Pixel won't connect to your carrier network. That's what happened to me and several other Pixel 3 owners. The good news is a fix is coming, the bad news is Google doesn't have a date for that fix.
News: 'Hyper Reality' Visionary Keiichi Matsuda Parts Ways with Leap Motion
After a little more than a year at motion tracking technology maker Leap Motion, Keiichi Matsuda has resigned his position as vice president of design and global creative director, the company announced on Wednesday.
News: Former Googlers Raise $8 Million Funding to Reinvent Remote Collaboration Through Magic Leap & HoloLens
Last week, Twilio showed off how avatar-based chat communications will work on the Magic Leap One, and now a new startup has unveiled yet another way that augmented reality telepresence and remote collaboration can take place on the device.
News: Lyft's Pick Up of AR Cloud Startup Blue Vision Labs Could Bring AR Features to Ride-Sharing
On Tuesday, Blue Vision Labs, one of three Google-backed companies working on AR Cloud platforms, announced its acquisition by ride-sharing company Lyft.
News: The First Smartglasses with True Mainstream Appeal Arrive via North's Focals
The dream of Google Glass lives on via North's stylish and normal-looking smartglasses that bring text messages and navigation prompts into the user's field of view and Amazon Alexa integration for voice-activated assistance.
News: Resolution Games Scores $7.5M in Funding Round Backed by Google, Unity Founder, & Others
Fresh off shipping an augmented reality game for Magic Leap, Resolution Games has farmed another $7.5 million in funding through a Series B round.
News: ESPN, Fox Sports, & NBA's Clippers & Mavericks Draw Up Augmented Reality Plays to Win Over Fans
Augmented reality is becoming a slam dunk for sports entertainment, as leagues, their teams, and their broadcast partners have been quick to adopt AR.
News: Google's Night Sight Camera Is Downright Amazing
The Pixel 3 has an indisputably great camera, but a software update coming soon is going to make it even better. Google will be adding a "Night Sight" shooting mode that's so good with low-light situations that you'll have to see it to believe it.
News: iOS 12.1 Public Beta 5 for iPhone Released to Software Testers
Just hours after the release of dev beta 5 on Monday, Oct. 22, Apple released iOS 12.1 public beta 5 to software testers. The update came just one week after the company seeded the fourth 12.1 beta to developers and public testers alike, continuing the weekly update schedule established over the past few releases.
News: Apple Releases iOS 12.1 Beta 5 to Developers
Check your Settings, software testers — Apple released the fifth iOS 12.1 beta on Monday, Oct. 22, just seven days after seeding the fourth beta to both developers and public testers alike. While this initial update is only for developers, we expect Apple to subsequently release the public beta within hours of this post.