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YSK: You Can Lock Mario Kart Tour in Landscape or Portrait Without Touching Your Phone's Main Rotate Setting
Nintendo changed Mario Kart Tour for the better with an option to play the game in landscape mode. That said, the game will rotate automatically, which can mess you up in the middle of a heated race. But you don't need to lock your iPhone or Android phone's orientation setting to fix the problem since you can do so within the game itself. That way, other apps will auto-rotate as usual.
How To: Set Data Limit Alerts on Google Fi
Google Fi Is a great wireless carrier alternative and can be quite beneficial when used correctly. If you don't require much data, you can easily get away with a $30 or less bill. However, if you wanted to crank out more data during your current billing cycle, there's a setting you should use to keep your data in check.
How To: Share Your Phone's Screen with Friends in Facebook Messenger Video Chats
Screen recording is an essential tool for sharing what's on our smartphones. If you want to send your friends and family an unsharable video you're watching, or a neat trick you discovered on your phone, recording your screen is one way to do so. Messenger, Facebook's standalone chat app, simplifies the experience by implementing live screen shares directly in video calls.
How To: Anonymously View Instagram Stories & Posts Without an Account
Instagram makes it easy to view a public account without that person or business knowing unless, you know, your finger accidentally slips and hits the like button on a post. Aside from that, if you're careful, you can browse anonymously through an account without anyone noticing — only you can't do that with Instagram Stories.
How To: Apple Added 8 Key Android Features to iOS 14 & It's a Big Deal if You're on the Fence About iPhones
The smartphone market is stagnating. Without hordes of new users rolling in every year, the best way to boost profits nowadays is to poach customers from the competition. That's exactly what Apple appears to be doing with iOS 14.
How To: Share Your Smartphone's Screen in Google Meet
Now that Google Meet is free for anyone with a Gmail address, you can expect to see invites from Google's service alongside Zoom calls.
How To: 5 Ways to Communicate Safely on Your Smartphone — Keep Police & Big Data Out of Your Conversations
It is well documented that what you say and do online is tracked. Yes, private organizations do their best to protect your data from hackers, but those protections don't extend to themselves, advertisers, and law enforcement.
How To: Get Your Favorite Local Business into Pokémon GO
A side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic is that small businesses are suffering from forced closures and social distancing, but game developer Niantic has a solution.
How To: Join in the First-Ever Virtual Pokémon GO Fest
With the global COVID-19 pandemic preventing Pokémon GO players from venturing into the real world, developer Niantic has adapted the game for trainers to play in a socially-distanced manner.
How To: Show Your Support for Social Causes with AR Lenses from Snapchat, Instagram & More
For the average consumer, augmented reality is a fun way of dressing up photos and videos for social media. However, AR is also gaining momentum as a medium for storytelling, particularly in sharing powerful messages.
How To: 4 Smartphone Tips to Help You Stay Safe During the Country's Reopening
It is a scary time to be alive. As states start to ease back shelter-in-place restrictions, the new world you're entering is still unsafe. With a vaccine months away, your best bet is to follow CDC guidelines and use the tools at your disposal.
How To: Download HBO Max Movies & TV Shows in the Highest Quality on Your Phone
Whether you're binging "Friends," "Game of Thrones," or Harry Potter movies, if you want to watch HBO Max downloads in the highest quality possible, you can't just use the default settings. Without doing the legwork, the TV shows and films you download onto your iPhone or Android phone will be lower quality than the full HD version you can have.
How To: 5 Major Privacy Concerns with 5G
For all the benefits 5G brings to cellular data, it isn't without weaknesses, the biggest being privacy. Yes, the latest standard comes with breakneck downloads speeds up to 4.3 Gbps, but at what cost? Like with all things on the internet, 5G devices open opportunities for both good and bad actors.
How To: Everything You Should Do Before Posting Protest Photos & Videos on Social Media
As protests surge in the wake of George Floyd's murder by a Minneapolis police officer, powerful photographs and videos from the demonstrations have gripped the world, putting our nation's very real and very justifiable widespread civil unrest out into the digital world. Unfortunately, these pictures could put you or others in danger if precautions aren't taken before uploading them online.
How To: Everything You Need to Know About 5G — Answers to the Most Common Questions
We are now in the age of 5G. Carriers worldwide are upgrading their networks to the newest standard for mobile, which will dramatically improve your phone experience. How? By giving it download speeds and latency that surpass Wi-Fi. But before you upgrade, there are few things you should know first.
How To: Wipe & Obfuscate Identifying Information in Your Protest Photos for More Anonymous Sharing
Every single photo you take carries with it a considerable amount of seemingly "invisible" yet important information known as metadata. Although metadata is usually helpful to sort your photographs by location and date, that same information could potentially be used against you, especially if the pictures are taken during a precarious situation.
How To: Change Your HBO Max User Profile Image
Many streaming services offer user profiles for different people in your household, some of which also include profile images. In most cases, you can set a custom profile image to better differentiate and personalize your account from the others, and HBO Max lets you do the same, albeit, with limited options.
How To: Only Buy a 5G Phone Right Now if You're Okay with These 4 Problems
No doubt, you've heard a lot about 5G lately. This might have you looking at your current 4G phone and lamenting your inability to connect to the faster network. But is 5G worth buying a new phone over, and should you buy one right now?
How To: Try Out Instagram's Wild New AR Effects That Dance to the Music & Remix Your Photos
While Snapchat had a head start in making augmented camera effects popular on smartphones, Facebook has spent the past few years in hot pursuit, with no less than three apps offering mobile AR experiences, plus its Portal hardware lineup of smart home devices.
How To: Stream & Download HBO Max Over Cellular Data
HBO Max is finally here, all while unlimited cellular data plans have never been more available. The two seem like a perfect pair, but you might find that you can't binge "Friends" or "Westworld" on the go. At least, not without downloading episodes beforehand. Fortunately, there's an easy way to fix that.
How To: HBO Max Subscribes You to Its Newsletter Automatically — Here's How to Opt-Out
HBO Max promises to entertain you with hours upon hours of content, from shows like "Friends" and "Game of Thrones" to movies like "Joker" and all eight Harry Potters. The company wants to keep you in the loop on all things "Max," so it signs you up for a newsletter to do just that. That might not sit well with you, but don't worry — there's a simple way to opt-out right now.
How To: Make a Smooth Transition from HBO Now to HBO Max
If you were upset about "Friends" leaving Netflix, fret no more. The entire series, all eight Harry Potter movies, as well as HBO's massive catalog, are now available as part of HBO Max. If you're already an HBO Now subscriber, however, it can be a bit confusing to know how to switch over to this brand new service. Here's how.
How To: Is 5G Available in Your Area? Here's How to Check
In 2009, 4G LTE networks rolled out in Stockholm and Oslo, replacing 3G as a better upgrade to the mobile data technology that gives us the broadband speeds we have on our mobile devices. Over a decade later, and we have the latest, next-generation wireless network technology among us, 5G, but can you even use it?
How To: Not on Facebook? Here Are 4 'Avatar' Alternatives for Creating Your Digital Doppelganger
With Avatar, Facebook's personalized stickers for use on its social and messaging platforms, those who aren't on Facebook or have otherwise dumped the social network may feel left out.
How To: Try on the LA Rams' New Uniforms with Snapchat AR
The Los Angeles Rams are the latest NFL franchise to introduce new or modified uniforms for the 2020 season, joining the Atlanta Falcons, Cleveland Browns, Indianapolis Colts, New England Patriots, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and their neighbors, the Los Angeles Chargers.
How To: Save Money on Your Disney+ Subscription with These Deals
With shows like "The Mandalorian" and movies like "Frozen 2," Disney+ has quickly become a must-have streaming service. However, with Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu, adding another subscription-based service can become expensive — but there are ways to trim down the cost.
How To: Enable Dark Mode in Facebook's iOS & Android Apps
Dark mode is simply a way of life these days now that both Android and iOS officially support it. Most major apps now use the system-wide setting on Android and iOS, and many had their own dark themes in-app before Google and Apple got with the program. But the social media giant Facebook took forever to implement a night theme, and some of you still may not be able to access it.
How To: Add Subtasks in Asana's iOS & Android Apps
The Asana mobile app lets you manage your projects with the same functionality as the website. Most features are pretty straightforward, thanks to Asana keeping the same design cues from the web app. However, one element is very easy to miss: adding subtasks.
How To: Make a Google Keep List That Syncs to Your Work & Personal Accounts
Google's G Suite collection of premium cloud services and apps have become popular with business customers, with more than six million subscribers now.
How To: 8 Ways Google Lens Can Help You Be More Productive
I've covered augmented reality apps for about three years now and the most useful mobile app I've encountered over that time is Google Lens.
How To: Change Your AirPods' Name to Something More Unique — Right from Your iPhone or Android Phone
AirPods are starting to show up everywhere, and with more and more people owning them, it can be fun to make yours a little more personalized. One way you can do that is by giving your AirPods a unique name, something a bit more fun than "John's" or "Jane's AirPods." With just a few taps, you can change your AirPod's name right from your iPhone or Android phone.
How To: Put Someone on Hold During a Zoom Video Call to Lock Them Out Temporarily
During a meeting in real life, you could ask non-essentials to exit the room temporarily so that you can speak to just a few privately, but now that conferences exist online, it requires a bit more finesse. You could start a new video call on Zoom or remove individual participants, but that makes it hard for those who left to join again. But there is a feature where you can just put some users on hold.
How To: 16 Best Games to Fill the Sports Void in Your Life
The COVID-19 pandemic has practically shut down all sports except for World Wrestling Entertainment, which has continued staging matches without an audience, leaving us sports fans with nothing much to cheer for. While they can't replace live games, smartphone games provide an alternate reality to live out our competitive entertainment in the absence of the real thing.
How To: 8 Different Ways to Mute Someone on Zoom That's Disturbing Your Video Meeting
If you're using or need to use Zoom, the popular video teleconferencing service, you've almost certainly heard about "Zoombombing" by now. While Zoom has been adding security measures to address the problem, there are other things you can do to prevent or stop Zoombombers in their tracks so that your video meetings and chats go undisturbed and uninterrupted.
How To: Own a Ton of Digital Movies? Let Others Watch Them for Free with Screen Passes
One of the benefits of Blu-ray and DVD is the ability to share discs with friends and family without any hassle. Want to show off your favorite movie? Just lend them your copy. A digital movie isn't so kind, as it's typically locked to the account that purchased it. But now there is a way to share your digitally purchased movies with friends and family — and it won't cost you or them a dime.
How To: Check Real-Time Network Traffic on Google Wifi or Nest Wifi
For the most part, Google Wifi and Nest Wifi systems take care of themselves. But there are still a few manual features that might come in handy, like being able to check on network activity to see which devices are using the most bandwidth when your connection gets bogged down.
How To: Bypass Zoom's Attention Tracking Feature So Your Boss or Professor Can't Tell You're Slacking Off
When you're stuck working or learning from home, video meetings can help you stay connected to employers, coworkers, schools, students, and more. And Zoom is the hottest video conferencing service at the moment. While Zoom is easy to use, it does have a fair share of sketchy features you should know about, such as attendee attention tracking.
How To: Test Your Social Distancing Skills from Home with This AR App for Android & iOS
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus has practically guaranteed that the virus, along with the phrases "social distancing" and "flattening the curve," will rank among the top search terms of 2020. USA Today combined the phrases in its latest augmented reality experience, which quizzes your knowledge in the best practices of social distancing.
How To: Use Apple & Google's COVID-19 Screeners on Your Phone to See if You Might Have Coronavirus
The COVID-19 pandemic has created a frenzy for news and information that is nearly unprecedented in the smartphone era, with a major side effect of misinformation. Now, major tech companies are making it easier to ask for advice about novel coronavirus from their respective digital assistants. Results may vary, but Apple and Google are the most useful at the moment.
How To: Use Telegram's Polls to Settle Arguments in Group Chats
With group chats, arguments tend to devolve from a dispute between two people to a giant debate amongst all members. But before things get out of control, Telegram has a feature that can help.