If there's any lingering uncertainty as to the mainstream viability of augmented reality, a list of the top mobile apps and games of 2019 serves to dispell those doubts.
You no longer have to completely convert your default or primary system language to change the language of a single app on your iPhone. Thanks to iOS 13, each app can now have its own language settings: if you want Spanish for WhatsApp but English for Instagram & Twitter, you can do that.
When you're checking out photos and video on Instagram, its default bright white layout can literally be an eyesore, especially in dimly lit settings where the bleached UI feels blinding. Luckily, there's a really simple way to switch from the normal light mode to a dark mode look in the iPhone and Android app.
Developers in the augmented reality industry got a lot of love this week.
In iOS 12, Apple included new, Snapchat-like effects and stickers for photos and videos in Messages. While these new options are fun, they're missing something that takes away from the appeal, especially since Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, and similar apps already let you do it.
This week, we're beginning to see the wide ranging impacts of some of the early iterations of augmented reality hardware and software.
It seems we've come full circle in alternative dating routes. Just like a long time ago when people were able to go to matchmakers and watch videos of potential matches, the dating app 'Hinge' is now allowing you to add videos to your profile.
Smartphones don't generally play nice with tripods, so videos taken with our handheld devices make terrible source material for time-lapse photography.
AllCast, from renowned developer Koushik Dutta (better known as Koush), allows users to stream personal media, such as movies, photos, and music from mobile devices to Chromecast and other streaming devices.
With the Android 4.4 KitKat update slated for release sometime in October (according to Nestle), I'm sure you're excited to get your hands on and test out all of the new features of Google's latest mobile operating system.
Offensive pictures, depressing tweets, political statuses, and just plain old dumb comments are only a few of the reasons why people unfriend or unfollow others on social media sites. Sometimes it's just social spring cleaning, other times there's no reason at all.
To share a song or album to family and friends, it's as easy as copying its link in the app and pasting that into a message. However, not everyone uses the same music streaming service, so a link to an Apple Music song won't do a Spotify, Tidal, Pandora, Deezer, or YouTube Music subscriber any good. If you're on an iPhone, though, there's an easy way to convert links from one service to another.
To stand out on Instagram, you need more than just the great camera on the Galaxy S20. You have to think like a professional photographer, which means two things: using manual mode and editing your photos. It is only with the latter that what you imagine becomes a reality.
Apple just released the first public beta for iOS 13.4.5 today, Thursday, April 16. This update comes one day after Apple released 13.4.5 developer beta 2, which itself arrived just over two weeks after 13.4.5 dev beta 1.
It takes confidence and guts to pull off attractive and yet adequately frightening Halloween makeup as an adult.
The biggest feature in the iOS 13 update is a new system-wide Dark Mode. It's a simple switch that you enable to turn system menus and Apple apps dark, but it can also darken third-party apps if their developers elect to support it. Trouble is, most haven't yet, so half of your apps likely still have a blinding white background.
Perhaps it's a coincidence that the Vuzix Blade smartglasses look like the sunglasses that a police officer would wear, but a new partnership with an AI software company makes the wearable a perfect fit for law enforcement.
After testing the waters with a few pop-up stores along the West Coast earlier this year, North is bringing its smartglasses to more cities across the US and Canada.
The natural marriage between fashion and augmented reality is charging onward, but not just from the major brands we already know about.
At its F8 developer's conference in 2016, Facebook went on record with a roadmap that called for augmented reality integration into Oculus within 10 years. Now, it appears as though Facebook is accelerating those plans.
The great thing about augmented reality is that so much is possible using the emerging tools and software, your only real limit is your imagination — that includes making real versions of imagined products.
Snapchat and Snap Camera aren't the only augmented reality apps available for couples to use on Valentine's Day.
Mobile augmented reality company Snapchat now has a special option for romantic message exchanging this Valentine's Day, a day which, incidentally, happens to be the first one in 116 years where Sweethearts, the original heart-shaped candy, will be unavailable for purchase.
Just over two months ago, smartglasses startup North opened the doors at its two brick-and-mortar retail locations in Toronto and New York and began accepting orders for Focals. On Thursday, the company announced that those initial customers can get ready to pick up their wearables, as the first shipments have now arrived in stores.
It looks like Facebook really likes Google's augmented reality leadership talent, as the social media giant has hired away another employee from the AR and VR team at Mountain View to lead its team for a product that brings Facebook's AR platform into homes.
Last year at CES, RealMax blew away the AR headset competition with a prototype AR headset surpassing 100 degrees field of view.
It looks like the Harry Potter version of Pokémon GO won't appear in 2018 after all, as the company has decided pushed the game's release to 2019.
Have you ever browsed through Lenses on Snapchat and got bummed out when the app recommends that you "try this with a friend" and you're all alone? Well, now you can take AR snaps with your cat!
As Facebook, Apple, Samsung, and others offer augmented reality selfie effects and content that challenge its platform, Snapchat has continued to innovate with its augmented reality capabilities.
At its F8 developers conference on Tuesday, Facebook announced new tools and features coming in a new version of AR Studio, including the integration of 3D content aggregator Sketchfab's Download API.
For social media platforms like Facebook, augmented reality represents a whole new art form with which users can express themselves online. Now, Facebook is giving those users a new brush.
An incorrectly scaled object in your HoloLens app can make or break your project, so it's important to get scaling in Unity down, such as working with uniform and non-uniform factors, before moving onto to other aspects of your app.
The Force was awakened in many a household on Christmas morning this year, as evidenced by numerous recipients of newly unwrapped Star Wars: Jedi Challenges systems sharing their first lightsaber battles in augmented reality on social media.
If you ever thought the Snorlax in Pokémon Go should be taller, and you have an iPhone compatible with ARKit, get ready to look up.
Continuing its unrelenting (and mostly successful) campaign against Snapchat, on Tuesday, Facebook announced the addition of "World Effects" to its Messenger app.
Next to millennials, one of the groups most coveted by brand marketers is "Generation Z," the consumers of tomorrow who were born between 1996 and 2010. On Monday, Facebook established a beachhead with that demographic in the realm of augmented reality by launching Facebook Messenger Kids.
So you spent all day customizing your phone. You tinkered with all the settings, searched the web high and low for the perfect wallpaper, and found an ideal icon pack to complement the color scheme. You go to sleep, proud of the work you accomplished when the unspeakable happens — your phone freezes and tech support is telling you to do a factory reset to fix the problem.
Today, Facebook Messenger is rolling out Discover, a feature that helps you chat with companies and locate nearby businesses of interest to you. First discussed in April at Facebook's developer conference F8, Discover is finally available for public use.
Facebook is hiring video game teams and other eSports organizations to create live and on-demand videos for its newsfeed. The company aims to take on others such as Twitch and YouTube, where most of the eSports' content is typically housed.
If OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei was trying to be slick about using the new OnePlus 5 phone — especially before its speculated summer release — well, he didn't do that great a job of hiding it from us.
