Anticipation is building for the release of the Essential Phone. Andy Rubin's newest creation is expected to be loaded with features like a rear fingerprint reader, attachable 360-degree camera, and an edge-to-edge display. However, a news release from Sprint has just revealed ...more
You were the chosen one, Snapchat! The new download numbers for the social media app show just how hard it will be to bring them back to the light after the rise of the Instagram empire. Last month we reported that Snapchat's Download numbers had fallen 16%, bringing the num ...more
Google's Allo is still a work in progress, but the innovations to the chat and messaging app just keep on coming. The latest update rolling out now includes chat backups and a group incognito feature that we're very excited about. On Wednesday, Amit Fulay, the Head of Product ...more
The battle of the budget phone is well and truly underway, as both T-Mobile and ZTE have launched affordable new devices simultaneously. This week, ZTE's Max XL and T-Mobile's Coolpad Defiant were released for those of us with a limited budget. While not quite as budget-frien ...more
Despite a round of updates to Pokémon GO that patched and eliminated location spoofing, the game still has a difficult time dealing with the most hardcore cheaters. Like weeds on a grassy lawn, third-party bot makers still remain the biggest thorn in Niantic's side and continu ...more
Reddit user Mr. Squishy recreated the entire Game Boy Pokémon Red Version game in Vanilla Minecraft, i.e., a Minecraft server without gameplay modifications. Instead of using mods, he used 357,000 commands blocks—blocks that execute commands in the popular sandbox game. How lo ...more
The Broadway musical War Paint is teaming with augmented reality cosmetics app YouCam Makeup to promote the show on iOS and Android devices. The musical, which centers on the famous rivalry between Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein, two cosmetics industry pioneers, has bee ...more
Apple's music streaming service just got a major update on Android devices. The Spotify competitor has implemented some changes for users on non-Apple phones that have been available to iOS devices for some time now. Nevertheless, Apple Music users on Android should welcome t ...more
The popular RPG Death Road to Canada has finally arrived for the iPhone and iPad, and its impact is immediate. It's fast becoming a top contender for mobile video game of 2017, and it's very easy to see why. The game blends decision making and good old zombie bashing to create ...more
During the last few months, WhatsApp's Google Play Store ratings have been tanking—all the way down to an average of 3.4 stars from the instant messenger's usual average of 4.1. Within the last week, though, WhatsApp has received thousands of seemingly fake 5-star reviews that ...more
Sony offers a set of free games to its PlayStation Plus subscribers every month, but it's easy to miss out if you're not constantly around your console. Perhaps you're traveling, or maybe you've stayed up one too many nights playing Uncharted, leading to a period of PlayStatio ...more
The Washington Post believes augmented reality adds an extra layer to stories, and they're doubling down on that belief by adding in new AR features into their already popular "rainbow" news (iOS and Android) and Classic (iOS and Android) news apps. Last year the media compan ...more
Xiaomi phones run a skinned version of Android known as MIUI, which, over the years, has been a popular custom ROM. One of the standout features Xiaomi has added to the mix is something called Quick Ball, which lets you navigate your phone by swiping inward from a small circle ...more
One of the biggest hurdles for making touchscreen text input easy on the user has been finding a simple way to move the cursor around. With all the advancements in mobile technology, we're still left fumbling around with tiny arrow indicators or magnifying glasses when we need ...more
Crayon, a free 3D drawing application by the mysteriously named arkalian, showed up in the Windows Store recently, so I gave it a try like I do all new apps for Windows Holographic. Truthfully, I loaded it up not expecting much, but wow, was I wrong. It's a simple idea, but it ...more
Considering that Google makes Android, it's rather strange that the operating system doesn't have a baked-in solution for doing a reverse image search. Sure, you can long-press pictures in Chrome to search for other instances of a photo, but it's not possible with pictures you ...more
Android's notification system is quite robust, especially now that Google added bundled notifications and quick reply features to Android 7.0 Nougat. However, things can still get quite cluttered when you have several unread messages, which fills your status bar with icons and ...more
If your Android phone was made by Samsung, LG, HTC, or any other manufacturer that likes to apply skins on top of stock Android, then your camera app is tied to the custom gallery app that was preinstalled on your device. In other words, when you tap that little image preview ...more
We at Food Hacks Daily freakin' love Halloween—it's the perfect time for weird and creepy food. The gruesomer, the better. One of our classic favorites is the image of a frozen white hand, reaching out from a macabre pool of bright red blood. (This one is literally reaching o ...more
Blue light (like that from our smartphone) tricks the human brain into thinking it's still daytime, even if it's coming from something as small as a screen. So while you're playing around with your new Pixel or Pixel XL after dark, subconscious signals to be awake are preventi ...more
Video game emulation has saved arcade and console classics from obsolescence, and that wonderful hobby has found its way onto the Microsoft HoloLens—with some three dimensional upgrades, of course. If you own a Windows PC, you may have heard about 3DNes, a Nintendo Entertainm ...more
The HTC Vive and Valve's SteamVR make for one of the more compelling virtual reality experiences, mixing in real-world motion tracking with the immersive headset. But third-party manufacturers couldn't tap into the Vive's full potential and make creative new peripherals—until ...more
With every flagship device they release, Samsung makes sure to add in at least a few little software goodies. Last year's Galaxy Note5 was no exception, because among other things, Samsung included a revamped version of their useful utility called Air Command that gave users q ...more
A lot of folks complain about the extra features Samsung adds to Android, but while there are some benefits to the slimmer stock Android, the TouchWiz firmware on Galaxy devices definitely has its own advantages. Your phone creates a personalized equalizer based on your actua ...more
iPhone and iPad users are getting a huge update with iOS 10, and one of the biggest (and most sought after) redesigns is to the Music app, as shown at Apple's WWDC '16. The redesign essentially makes the user interface easier to navigate, which was something that was fairly cl ...more
I was skeptical when I first heard about GifWidget, an Android widget that lets you place GIFs on your home screen. As much as I love GIFs, did I really need to see this, this, this, or this, or even this, forever repeating on my phone? But then I tried out GifWidget, and sud ...more
Rooted users have been able to remap their hardware buttons since the earliest days of Android, allowing them to change the functionality behind one of the most centralized methods of interacting with a phone or tablet. Up until now, however, non-rooted users have been left ou ...more
We recently covered an app called Touch Controls for YouTube that allows you to swipe up or down on any YouTube video to quickly adjust volume levels or brightness. As awesome as that app is, commenters here and on our YouTube channel thought it was lacking one big feature—the ...more
CyanogenMod, the popular custom ROM available for many Android devices, has a nice little feature that displays a music visualizer beneath your on-screen navigation keys while you're listening to your favorite songs. It's a subtle touch, but it makes for a more immersive exper ...more
Google released an amazing swipe keyboard a few months ago called Gboard that has Google Search built right into it; This makes adding pics, GIFs, videos, and links to articles, restaurants, and shops a breeze. It even helps you search for emojis! The only problem is that Gboa ...more
Google has added a number of new features in the latest update to Google Keyboard including a one-handed mode and a setting that lets you adjust the height of the keys. The update hasn't gone live on the Play Store yet, but you can download the APK right now for both 32-bit an ...more
Google dropped its opposition to T-Mobile's Binge On service due to some favorable policy changes at the magenta carrier. From now on, YouTube and Google Play Movies will happily work with the feature. Binge On rolled out late last year, allowing many customers to receive unli ...more
If you're sick of playing chess in Facebook Messenger, there's another little-known game you can play with your friends directly in the app—basketball. This hidden game was originally added to Messenger before March Madness 2016, and still works perfectly to this day. Just ma ...more
Android's Google Play Games app has let you track your feats and accomplishments in the games you play for quite a while now, but for some, the immersion experience might be broken after you finish dominating a game only to see your regular-ass name from your Google account on ...more
YouTube announced last October some of the original programming it was producing for its YouTube Red subscription service, and the first four originals went live on Wednesday, February 10th. The first four original series are Lazer Team, A Trip to Unicorn Island, Scare PewDie ...more
Cord cutters are changing everything about TV—the more of us that sever ties with cable, the more changes we start to see. In fact, viewing habits have already changed so drastically that waiting a week to see the next episode in a series is no longer acceptable, as binge watc ...more
Android's copy/paste menu and text selection options have traditionally been downright terrible, but things are starting to get better with some recent improvements made in Marshmallow. That being said, there's still a lot left to be desired, and there's always plenty of room ...more
I loved the original Star Wars trilogy when I was a kid, but loathe all of the current DVD, Blu-ray, and streaming versions available today. Ever since 1997, every version of A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi has had horrendous CGI effects added in th ...more
Live Photos is an interesting new feature introduced by Apple on the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus models that captures the moments immediately before and after you snap a picture in the Camera app, resulting in a GIF-like animation. But unlike a conventional GIF file, a Live Photo d ...more
Ideas can be a fleeting thought, just like a shooting star that appears and disappears within a brief moment. So when you're inspired and have an awesome idea, it's important to jot it down as soon as possible, otherwise it may vanish from your memory for good. This is why th ...more
When you swipe from page to page on your home screen, the contents on your screen change, but the wallpaper always remains the same. And while Android does include plenty of ways to customize your device, setting a unique wallpaper for each home screen page isn't one of them. ...more
Spotify has a feature called Taste Rewind that claims to know what you would've listened to back in the '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, and oughts ('00s), all based on your listening history and favorite artists. You can essentially time travel into the past and already have "favorite ...more
If you want to watch a movie on Netflix with a friend, family member, or significant other, but can't meet up in the same living room, the next best thing is doing it remotely from the comfort of your own homes. Xbox LIVE used to have a feature called Party mode that made it ...more
In addition to sharing emojis and GIFs, most of us also probably share various types of links through email or text, whether it be for a Google Maps location, a bar or restaurant on Yelp, or an awesome song on Spotify. The process typically calls for switching applications, s ...more
Thanks to a newly discovered iOS exploit, a text message can now ruin your day. It will literally cripple your iPhone, and the worst thing is that anyone with a phone that supports double-byte unicode can do it to you. While it initially sounded like bullshit, we tried it out ...more
An app called Launcher was released for iOS 8 last September that let users open any installed app directly from a widget in the Notification Center pull-down. For some reason, Apple didn't take too kindly to this and banned Launcher from the iOS App Store just a few days afte ...more
We have all seen videos of people walking off of platforms and into street signs because they were too distracted by their phones to pay attention. This has become such a problem that cities have even considered fining pedestrians for texting and walking. Even though I find t ...more
Now that we have control over a victim's browser, we need to use some attacks to maintain the connection, or even better: upload a shell. Creating a Persistent Connection Now that the victim's browser is hooked, we need to quickly set up a persistence method to keep the conn ...more
As someone who loves to run around my neighborhood, the Apple Watch feature that excited me the most was the ability to go out and exercise while listening to music, all without having to lug my iPhone around. After unboxing the Apple Watch, that's one of the first features I ...more
With the release of the Nexus 5 back in 2013 came the Google Now Launcher, which has become the go-to choice for many Android users, especially those who prefer the Nexus line. With its integration of the Google Now page and the always-listening hotword detection, you'd be har ...more
Android's auto brightness feature was recently updated, and as of version 5.0, a new "Adaptive brightness" feature was added. This allows users to set a preferred overall brightness level, but still have the ambient light sensor adjust the backlight accordingly. For many folk ...more
Collaborating with other people can be a pain, especially if you have to share one device between the entire group. Usually when you're creating a new design or trying to edit a mockup, you end up hunched around a single screen or end up emailing revisions back and forth, whic ...more
In the shadow of Facebook's announcement for third-party app development on Messenger, the company has announced the release of a whole new application called Riff, a creative tool for making videos with friends. Video: . Available on the Google Play Store or the iOS App Store ...more
As the granddaddy of all gesture-based keyboards, Swype has seen quite a few updates in its day. A recent version bump, however, added a feature that has been universally panned by Swype users. In an attempt to integrate emojis into their gesture-based input method, Swype dev ...more
Before phones became mobile-gaming, music-playing, app-downloading devices, they were used simply to make convenient, cordless phone calls. There's so much on phones these days that a passcode is needed to keep everything secure, and making calls is now more complicated. On a ...more
Sling TV, the new over-the-top TV streaming service from DISH Network, is the first to offer live programing for cord cutters. Available for $20 a month with no contract, Sling TV is the easiest way to end the reliance on cable and satellite subscriptions for getting your cont ...more
Not all smartphone chargers put out the same amount of current. The adapter in your car probably charges your phone a lot slower than the one plugged in at your bedside, and if you use wireless charging, it may be a bit slower still. Even considering the variance in listed am ...more
If there's one gripe I have with Android Lollipop, it's the new volume menu. When Priority mode was introduced, the stock volume panel was revamped to accommodate it, and somewhere along the way a bit of functionality was lost. The way things are now, there are only two metho ...more
I have a weird fondness for the texture, if not the taste of Velveeta (and Kraft American cheese slices). No other cheese has quite the same amount of slip or smoothness and manages to stay that way, undoubtedly because Velveeta contains sodium alginate, an algae derivative th ...more
Finding the right mix of custom ROM, kernel, and tweaks for my OnePlus One has left me flashing every new release I come across. This has led to many hours going through thread after thread trying to find the latest and best software out there for my phone. While I do enjoy th ...more