Smartphones Features
News: Shima Smartglasses Make Augmented Reality Fashionable
The world of augmented reality has seen a myriad of different products, from sensor-laden smartphones to robust holographic headsets, but Google Glass's failures nearly killed the middle ground.
How To: The Best Phones for Watching Movies & TV Shows — Under $500
You might think you need to buy a thousand dollar phone to get a great experience while streaming movies and TV shows from services like Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube, but that's just not true anymore. While phone prices keep rising and the midrange segment now ranges from $300–$500, there are still cost-effective options that come with top-notch displays and media features.
Ranked: The 5 Best Workout Phones for Fitness Fanatics in 2020
A good smartphone can be the perfect workout companion. You have music for motivation, videos for pushing through boring cardio sessions, GPS to keep you on course, and even an array of sensors for gathering data about your workout. But not all phones are created equal when it comes to helping you stay fit.
How To: Set up your Facebook account on your Android phone
Can't get enough Facebook? Take your "friends" status updates with you wherever you go by syncing your Facebook account with your Android smart phone. Having access to Facebook on your cell phone will keep you in touch, and come in handy when you need to look up a phone number or email address.
How To: Turn Your iPhone Photos into Digital Glitch Art
Find Hipstamatic too nostalgic? Instead of trying to emulate film from fuzzy bygone days, iPhone app Decim8 goes in a different direction—futuristic digital destruction. The $0.99 app creates digital artifacts, putting your photos through a glitchy blender and spewing out surprise results. The app arranges/activates effects at random, and never churns out the exact same effects twice. It allows for full size photo output, and saves the original, uneffected image, in addition to the glitched i...
News: New Magic Leap Images Appear as Saudi Prince Gets Demo from CEO Rony Abovitz
It turns out that the government of Saudi Arabia has managed to do something last month's Game Developers Conference couldn't — give us a few new glimpses of the Magic Leap One being worn by someone other than Shaq.
How To: Use Bluetooth or speakerphone to make a hands-free call
More and more jurisdictions are mandating drivers use hands-free sets when they make or receive cell phone calls. This tutorial shows you how you can use a Bluetooth or hands-free headset to make and receive calls, or how to use the hands free functionality in some cars.
How To: Fix a stuck Blackberry trackball with no tools
The trackball on your Blackberry is your only way of navigating much of the phone, so having it work is pretty important. If yours has gotten stuck, don't panic, just watch this video and see if the easy fix depicted therein will work for you.
How To: Disassemble an HTC Touch HD (Blackstone), replace the LCD and digitizer
The HTC Touch HD is a nice handset, and like most smarphones devastatingly expensive to fix if something goes wrong and you don't have the knowledge from this video. It will teach you how to disassemble your Touch HD (or Blackstone) for the purpose of replacing the screen and digitizer, two things you too are likely to have to do in the lifespan of your phone.
News: Try These 5 Hot New Snapchat Lenses — Iron Man, iDubbz & More
In this week of Snapchat lenses, there was a significant increase in ones that involve Marvel superheroes (the Infinity War effect), as well as ones with YouTubers. Classic sitcoms will also always do well, as evidenced by some of my previous roundups. Overall, lenses are doing well and only continuing to grow.
How To: Listen to Spotify in offline mode with an Android smartphone
If you want to keep listening to music on your Android smartphone or tablet using the Spotify app, take a look at this video guide from Cnet on how to use Spotify in offline mode. This will let you keep listening to music while in an elevator or when you lose a data connection.
NR30: Next Reality's 30 People to Watch in Augmented Reality for 2020
The year 2020 was a pivotal span of time during which the word "virtual" took on a brand new meaning. Instead of referring to VR or augmented reality, the term was hijacked to describe meeting across long distances through a variety of software tools, most often through video.
Fyre Starters: Meet the 15 Stars Whose (Undisclosed) #Spon Brought the FTC's Wrath on Instagram
Now that Fyre Festival co-founder Billy McFarland is charged with fraud, this is the perfect time to list off those top 15 influencers who promoted tickets to the disastrous event to their loyal followers, right?
How To: Put your Apple iPod or iPhone into DFU mode
If you own an Apple iPod or iPhone, and you want to unbrick it, you'll need to prepare the device first. This video will show you how to put your Apple iPod or iPhone into DFU mode, which means Device Firmware Update. You'll need to attach the Apple device to your computer for iTunes. If you're looking to jailbreak the iPod, this will help you get to that step.
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.
How To: Use Root explorer to delete a stock app from your Android phone
If you've found alternatives that you prefer to the stock apps on your Android phone, delete the ones you don't use. It's easy, just watch this video and learn how to use root explorer to delete stock apps from your Android device.
How To: Install IPA apps onto a jailbroken iPhone or iPod Touch
After jailbreaking your iPhone 3G or iPod Touch, you can use WinSCP (a Windows ftp program) and OpenSSH (an app avilable through Cydia) to put IPA files on your Apple device using a Windows computer. This video walks you through the process of accessing a root directory to make your iPod or iPhone IPA-compatible.
Apple AR: Star Wars Holograms Are Now a Real Thing on iPhone X via Clips App
Augmented reality is making many of our childhood dreams from Star Wars come true. A week after Lenovo gave us the ability to actually play Holochess, Apple has now made it possible to take live video of ourselves and layer on a (non-3D) hologram-like effect, closely resembling the famous Star Wars hologram scene featuring Princess Leia decades ago.
News: Google Researchers Develop Method for Capturing 'Relightable' Volumetric Video
As the demand for realistic volumetric video for AR experiences begins to grow (along with the available facilities and services for capturing it), researchers at Google have figured out how to improve upon the format.
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.
How To: Get your iPhone 3G/3GS to play HD YouTube videos
To watch HD videos in YouTube in your iPhone 3g you must have Cydia and jailbroken iPhone with 3.0.1 IOS.
News: Royal Australian Air Force Using HoloLens to Experiment with Augmented Reality
The limitless applications of 3D data visualization will enable a more efficient approach to many of life's problems. Each day, developers exploring this technology are finding new ways to solve these problems in mixed reality; 3D modeling, easier house management, spinal surgery, and forest fire management are just a few recent examples of ways 3D data visualization can benefit us all.
How To: Add contacts on the Samsung Galaxy I7500
Watch this video to learn how to add a contact using the Samsung Galaxy I7500. To Enter a New Contact: 1. From the homepage, tap the Contacts icon, then the Menu key. 2. Tap "New Contact" and enter desired contact information. 3. Enter the phone number. 4. Scroll to the bottom of the screen and press "Done". To Edit an Existing Contact: 1. Press and hold the contact. 2. Press the "Edit Contact" icon. 3. Add an image if desired by tapping the image icon and selecting a desired image. 4. Press ...
How To: Copy and paste text on a Google Android smartphone
Often, it's much quicker to copy and paste text than to retype it completely. Fortunately for Droid users, it's easy to copy and paste text on Android phones! So easy, in fact, that this home-computing how-to from the folks at Butterscotch can present a complete, step-by-step overview of the process in just two minutes' time. For detailed instructions, and to get started using copying and pasting on your Android phone yourself, watch this free video tutorial.
How To: Take a screenshot on your Android phone by shaking it using the screenshot app
Shake it like a Polaroid picture is out. Shake it for a screenshot on an Android phone is in. Watch this video to learn how to download and install the screenshot app for your Android phone that takes a screenshot when you shake the phone.
How To: Root and unlock a Motorola Droid 2 Google Android smartphone
Root your Droid 2 the easy way! Unlock your mobile phone's hidden potential by running custom ROMs, overclocking it, and even turning it into a wireless hotspot with WiFI tethering. For all of the details, and to get started rooting your own Droid 2 cell phone, take a look.
iPhone XR vs LG G7 ThinQ: Same Price, Same Screen Size, but Vastly Different Overall
With the new iPhones coming out, many see the current mobile market as just another epic battle between Samsung and Apple. But let's not forget there are many other phones that run Android. And when you start to sift through the specs, one stands out as a competitive alternative to the iPhone XR, the LG G7 ThinQ.
How To: Load ringtones from your computer onto your Droid
This video shows you how to easily put ring tones on your Motorola Droid phone. The first thing you have to do is plug in the Droid to your PC and open the Removable Disk that pops up. Next, you have to create a new folder and name it "Music". Then, you can simply copy-paste or drag-and-copy mp3 files to that Music folder. Next, you have to disconnect the Droid from your PC. You have to open up the application called RingDroid or download a fresh copy of it from the marketplace, if you do not...
How To: Send pictures from your computer to your cell phone
With all of the technology literally at our fingertips, there's no excuse for things not to be easy, right? Don't get frustrated about not being able to send pictures with the simple click of a mouse. Educate yourself with this video so you can send pictures to your cell phone. That way you can have that awesome photo from last weekend available no matter where you are. This video will show you how to send pictures from your computer to your phone.
News: The HoloLens Might Have a Small Field of View, but That's Actually a Good Thing
Microsoft's HoloLens is certainly a leap into the future of mixed reality interfaces, but it's not without drawbacks.
News: Two Doctors Simplify Spinal Surgery with the HoloLens
True innovation tends to come from the places we least expect as developers. The Microsoft HoloLens is still a very new product, and some of the other headsets are still just ideas, so the rules for mixed reality are not set in stone. That means all the real problems to be solved are yet to come.
How To: Take Spinning Video Footage from Above with a Ceiling Fan & Phone
This is a simple process for those wanting to capture a circular view of an object with their smartphone or other type of camera.
How To: Reverse look up phone numbers
Everybody gets phone calls from those strange numbers you kinda sorta recognize. Is that an old friend? Is it the guy you met last week? What's that area code anyway? Get to the bottom of the mystery by using reverse phone book services. This video will show you to find the source of a phone number.
News: Transcribe Audio for Free with This Awesome Cross-Platform App
Despite its fifth-place finish in our ranking of the best transcriber apps on iOS, Voicera is still worth highlighting due to numerous factors that set it apart from the crowd. Besides being completely free to use on both iPhone and Android, the app's AI-based transcription service performed extremely well in our testing.
How To: Take apart an iPhone
Learn how to take apart your Apple iPhone PDA and remove the screen for repair. Helpful voiceover guides you through the process.
How To: Use Waze's 'Add a Stop' Feature to Save Time & Money on Roadtrips
Road trips almost always include unforeseen pit stops, which can take you way off track from your destination and end up causing massive delays. But if you rely on Waze for navigation, however, this issue is totally covered.
How To: Use Sony's New PlayStation Mobile on Any Rooted Android Device
Early last month, Sony released PlayStation Mobile, bringing PlayStation games to the PS Vita and other certified phones and tablets. The list of certified phones isn't as extensive as it should have been, consisting of only Sony devices (a few tablets and Xperia) and a couple of HTC ones. For anyone with a supported device, you can head over to the PS Store for the download and installation instructions.
How To: Install cracked apps straight from your iPhone
Learn how to install cracked apps straight from your Apple iPhone. Enjoy cracked apps without even touching your computer. You must add this source to your Cydia if you do not hav it:
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.
News: The Police and Your Cell Phone Carrier Make a Great Team—Maybe Too Great
You know that feeling when your cell phone gets stolen and you figure it is pretty much lost forever. You could've used one of the millions of device managers and trackers, but ya didn't. And the Good Samaritan is not coming to your rescue.