Smartphones How-Tos
HoloLens Dev 101: Building a Dynamic User Interface, Part 11 (Rotating Objects)
Continuing our series on building a dynamic user interface for the HoloLens, this guide will show how to rotate the objects that we already created and moved and scaled in previous lessons.
How To: Add Time & Location Stickers to Media Files on WhatsApp for More Context
For quite some time, popular messaging apps like Snapchat have had features that let you place stickers on photos and videos to add time and location-based information. To catch up, WhatsApp has now added the same functionality to its messaging platform in an effort to remain among the most well-rounded messaging apps available.
How To: Pre-Register for Jam City's 'Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery' Game Right Now
If you're a Harry Potter fan who has ever wanted to have your own Hogwarts adventure, you're in luck — Jam City is close to releasing "Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery," a mobile game that allows you to attend the magical school yourself. In fact, it's so close you can pre-register for the game right now.
How To: Get the Galaxy S9's New Wallpapers on Any Phone
The Galaxy S9's new wallpapers look fantastic, but you don't need to buy one to know that. Whether you have an iPhone X or a Pixel 2, Samsung's updated wallpaper library is yours for the taking, thanks to an S9 system dump released today.
Snapchat 101: How to Use 3D Friendmojis to Interact with Friends' Bitmojis in Augmented Reality
Snap Inc.'s dedication to augmented reality has expanded the world lenses in Snapchat to our own Bitmojis. While it's great to see our characters interacting with real environments, we haven't seen them connect to other Bitmoji in AR space. That all changes with "3D Friendmojis," a lens from Snapchat that lets you stage scenes between your Bitmoji and a friend's.
Snapchat 101: How to Add GIFs from Giphy to Your Snaps
A relatively new feature in Snapchat, having been first introduced in February 2018, is GIF support. These new animated stickers, straight from a partnership with Giphy, came to the app about a month after Instagram received GIF capabilities. If you've used Instagram's version, adding GIFs to snaps is even more intuitive. While they were late to the game, they're doing it better.
How To: Easily Convert Cooking Times for Your Microwave's Wattage Using These Apps
Not all microwaves are created equal, so when you use the recommended cooking time on any microwaveable meal, chances are you're actually cooking the food too much or not enough. And unless you're really good at mental math or have a virtual assistant that's smarter than Siri and Google, you have to do things the long way — but not with these helpful apps for iOS and Android.
How To: The Quick & Dirty Guide to the Augmented Reality Terms You Need to Know
Every industry has its own jargon, acronyms, initializations, and terminology that serve as shorthand to make communication more efficient among veteran members of that particular space. But while handy for insiders, those same terms can often create a learning curve for novices entering a particular field. The same holds true for the augmented reality (also known as "AR") business.
WhatsApp 101: Control Who You Share Your WhatsApp Status Stories With
Sharing Stories via WhatsApp Status grants your friends access to your daily adventures in the form of GIFs, photos, videos, or simple texts. Like Snapchat, stories you share with your contacts disappear after 24 hours, giving you an extra layer of privacy since anything you post will not be permanent. And if you want to limit who can see your private stories, WhatsApp also has you covered.
ARKit 101: Creating Simple Interactions in Augmented Reality for the iPhone & iPad
As a developer, before you can make augmented-reality robots that move around in the real world, controlled by a user's finger, you first need to learn how to harness the basics of designing AR software for a touchscreen interface.
How To: Stop Oversharing & Reduce Your Online Footprint with These 9 Instagram Privacy Tips
As with most social media platforms, Instagram can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, it's a great way to share and express yourself — but on the other, it can be just as effective at compromising your privacy. Thankfully, there are a few things you can do to protect yourself.
Facebook 101: How to Post a List as Your Status Update
Facebook's status update box has received many new features over the years. You can go live, sell something, and even create a poll. But since all this was added, the status update box has been relatively stagnant. That's finally changing again with Facebook's newest addition: Lists.
Snapchat 101: How to Use the Snap Map Without an Account
While it's easy enough to make yourself invisible on Snap Map, nothing is quite as private as not having a Snapchat account at all. Whether you're concerned about your privacy or you simply never signed up for the social media platform, Snapchat's web-based map is an easy way to check in on what's happening in your area and beyond.
VLC 101: How to Cast Any Video to Your TV Natively
When it comes to media players, few are more capable than VLC. With its extensive codec support, VLC is able to play almost any video file. Partly due to its open-source nature, features are constantly added. This trend has continued with a new update that added native Chromecast support.
How To: 3 Tips to Help You Drive Safer with Waze
Because it sources a majority of its vital data from actual drivers on the road, Waze is easily one of the best navigation apps to use if you prioritize safety. Benefits such as crowd-sourced traffic data, police trap locations, and road work avoidance, when combined, help you anticipate traffic conditions with unprecedented accuracy and make adjustments accordingly.
Snapchat 101: How to Make Your Own Custom Geofilters & Lenses
Snapchat is in the midst of a massive redesign — one that not everyone loves. Still, it's clear that this is a decision fueled by money, and Snap Inc. believes this redesign will help attract more advertisers. Even so, Snapchat has a few more tricks up their sleeves to make a little extra dough. And while the average user couldn't care less about ads, they very easily could care about custom Filters and Lenses.
How To: 7 Tips to Help You Use Waze Like a Pro
Waze is the go-to navigation app for millions of drivers, and it's easy to see why. Benefits such crowd-sourced traffic data, police trap locations, and road work avoidance are just the tip of the iceberg. It can almost be overwhelming, but with these simple tips, you'll master Waze and start navigating like an expert in no time.
IFTTT 101: 5 Applets That Will Help Save Your Phone's Battery
Preserving battery life has become one of the biggest problems for the average user. Whether you're on Android or iPhone, your battery is probably a massive concern. While there are a ton of battery-saving tips out there, they mainly rely on you manually performing actions yourself. This isn't the case if you use IFTTT to take care of your battery automatically.
How To: Watch the Winter Olympics with Snapchat
Earlier this week, Snapchat announced a partnership with NBCUniversal regarding the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in South Korea. Starting on February 10, Snapchat will be streaming a feed of NBC's live broadcast of the Olympics in Pyeongchang.
How To: Use Google Voice as a 'Burner' Number
No matter your reasons, you might need a second phone number that's a little more disposable than your primary number — a "burner" number, so to speak. If you create this burner number using Google Voice, you'll get new functionality like call forwarding and voicemail transcripts, and best of all, it's completely free.
Signal 101: How to Disable Read Receipts So People Can't Tell When You've Seen Their Messages
After receiving many requests for the feature, Signal introduced read receipts last year to its mobile apps. However, some users don't like the idea other people knowing when they've read messages. Luckily, Signal lets you disable this feature and reclaim a little privacy.
IFTTT 101: 8 Useful Applets to Help You Get Started with Smartphone Automation
IFTTT is an application that allows you to automate certain tasks on your iPhone or Android. It can communicate with a myriad of apps and services on your phone by creating applets that perform actions automatically — actions you'd normally have to do manually. Finding those applets, however, can be a little difficult.
How To: 4 Ways to Hide All Traces of Your Messages Using Signal Private Messenger
Messaging apps can be a double-edged sword. Not only do they let you interact with other people, but they also let you go back and reminisce on past exchanges. However, that same archive can be used against you in certain situations. Luckily, Signal can be manipulated to remove any record of past messages.
Venmo 101: How to Send Money to Friends & Family
In the not so distant past, you had to actually go meet someone in person to repay money you owed them. Say they covered your half of dinner or picked up movie tickets — they wouldn't get their money back at least until the next time you saw them. Thankfully, Venmo has effectively eliminated this inconvenience.
How To: Get Snapchat's Super Bowl Filters & Show Your Eagles or Patriots Pride
Snapchat has been known to jazz it up for big events. They went deep on the Grammys, taking you behind the scenes — and adding a James Corden lens to boot. So when Snapchat had a super cool filter up their sleeve for Super Bowl LII, we weren't exactly shocked.
Signal 101: How to Send Disappearing Messages for Ultimate Privacy
With Signal's class-leading end-to-end encryption, you can be sure your messages will remain secure as they travel to the recipient. However, once the message arrives, its privacy is completely dependent on the receiver, who could share it anywhere if they wanted. To patch this vulnerability, Signal added disappearing messaging.
How To: Video or Audio Chat in Instagram Direct Messages for Quick Calls with One or More Users
The app that started as simply a photo-sharing social media platform has expanded to encompass so much more than that. Between live videos, stories, chat, and animated stickers, Instagram is more than the sum of its pictures. Now, there's a new feature to add to that list for Android and iOS — video and audio calls.
HoloLens Dev 101: Building a Dynamic User Interface, Part 10 (Scaling Objects)
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.
How To: This App Makes It Easy to Actually Hear the TV at a Loud Bar
In 2018, there are more ways than ever to watch your favorite sporting events. You can stream them with a number of services, or you can simply watch it on a TV. Many fans will even watch it at a sports bar. The problem with a sports bar is that you won't be able to hear the game over the sound of dozens of loud bargoers.
How To: 5 Ways to Stream the Super Bowl Without a Cable Subscription on iPhone or Android
Super Bowl LII will bring millions of football and non-football fans together to watch the big game on the big screen. But without a cable subscription, this process can be a little daunting. Luckily, the Google Play Store and the iOS App Store offer a few ways to accomplish this — no cable contract required.
IFTTT 101: How to Use Widgets to Control Your Favorite Applets on iPhone or Android
IFTTT is the king of simple automation apps. With minimal setup, you can easily add applets that companies and users create. You can also create your own applets to suit your needs. Sometimes, though, you need to trigger an action on your own. For times like these, adding a widget to your home screen is exactly what you need.
Snapchat 101: How to Use Your Selfies to Create a Bitmoji Deluxe
Accompanying Snapchat's core features, like editing snaps and applying filters to them, is Bitmojis. These are small avatars that you create in your own likeness and use all throughout Snapchat. Formerly, there were two "styles" that you could pick from to make your Bitmoji: Bitstrips style and Bitmoji style. But Snapchat has a third style now that will redefine the way you use Bitmojis.
IFTTT 101: Secure Your Automations with 2-Step Verification
If you want to automate tasks with your smartphone, IFTTT is a great app. It does a tremendous job of helping you find applets or creating your own from scratch, so it's easy to connect your favorite online services and make them react to each other. With all this personal information, though, you should ensure that your data is secure by enabling two-step verification.
Binance 101: Sell Your Stellar, Ripple & Other Alt-Coins for Bitcoin or Ethereum
Selling alt-coins like Stellar (XLM) or Ripple (XRP) in exchange for more widespread coins like Ethereum (ETH) or Bitcoin (BTC) can be a daunting task if you're new to cryptocurrency. Though you'll still need to do your research to avoid potential disasters, Binance takes the hassle out of trading digital currencies on your smartphone.
Coinbase 101: How to Refer Friends & Family to Earn Bonuses
Every dollar that comes your way is a blessing, especially when it comes to trading in the volatile world of bitcoins. Thankfully, Coinbase rewards you for sending much valued customers their way, giving you more money to feed your cryptocurrency trading needs.
Snapchat 101: How to Create & Use Stickers
Snapchat offers a rich experience for anyone looking to communicate with pictures in addition to (or instead of) words. There are many ways to share your snaps, from Memories to My Story. You can even draw all over your snaps, creating a unique experience that hinges on your own illustrations. Sometimes, though, you want to customize your snaps in a different way. In a more collage-y sort of way.
How To: Personalize Your Snapchat Stories with Drawings, Emoji, GIFs & More
Snapchat is one of the best ways for people to communicate with pictures, but it has a ton of other features baked into it. From the Memories feature to My Story, there are many ways to save save and share snaps among friends. Sometimes though, you want to add a little more pizzaz to your snaps. Luckily, Snapchat gives users a myriad of ways to interact with snaps before they're sent.
How To: Stop Panic Selling & Impulse Buys by Hoarding Your Cryptocurrency in Coinbase's Vaults
As cheesy as it sounds, #HODL became a thing for a reason. A lack of discipline when dealing with cryptocurrencies can lead to impulse buys and panic selling, and ultimately, depleted funds. Luckily, Coinbase has a way to safeguard your cryptocurrency savings to not only protect them against thieves, but to also help you resist the urge to sell off your investments.
Binance 101: How to Buy Ripple, TRON & Other Alt-Coins Using Bitcoin & Ethereum
Using Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH) to buy alt-coins like TRON (TRX), Stellar (XLM), or Ripple (XRP) can seem intimidating if you're new to cryptocurrency. Though you'll still need to do your research to avoid potential disasters, Binance takes the hassle out of trading digital currencies on your smartphone.
How To: It's Really No Contest — LastPass Is the Best Password Manager for iPhone & Android
When traversing the web, you'll regularly come across websites that require you to create an account. With the majority of these accounts, protection is limited to a simple password. Despite this, many people are still using weak passwords such "123456." For these reasons, you really need a password manager, and our research has shown that LastPass is still your best bet.