With any continuously active software, it can start to become fairly complex after a few years of updates. New features and revisions both get layered into a thick mesh of menu systems and controls that even pro users can get bewildered by. If you are new to a certain applicat ...more
The 12.9-inch iPad Pro was released in stores on November 11, 2015, and a couple days later I went to an Apple Store and to check it out in person. I had mixed feelings about the tablet, but was intrigued overall—so much so that over the next few weeks, as I found myself heari ...more
The international, Exynos-powered Galaxy S7 and S7 edge have had a working root method ever since a few days after release. But the North American variants—those using Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 processor—have locked bootloaders, and have proven to be almost unrootable up until ...more
It's a well-known fact (supported by myriad sources, including Fitness Magazine) that in order to lose a pound, you need to cut and/or burn 3,500 calories... which, divided by the number of days in the week, equals 500 calories a day. So, if you cut or burn 500 calories per d ...more
The sheer variety of Android devices on the market is staggering—one report suggests there are well over 24,000 distinct phones and tablets floating around out there. When you consider that each manufacturer adds a few tweaks to the Android code base here and there, that makes ...more
It always looks different when it's not about you. The Internet is our world's Alterego. Those many bits don't really make sense unless we want them to be valuable, to mean something. Our rush to the future is too fast to keep up with. Denying technology is ignorance, isolat ...more
As we're all aware, recon is vital to a successful hack. We need to know everything we can about the target in order to perform the best possible attack. Port scanning is a basic recon concept that is introduced very early in learning proper reconnoissance. The issue with port ...more
In case you didn't know, Android has an awesome hidden settings menu called "Developer options" that contains a lot of advanced and unique features. If you've ever come across this menu before, chances are you just dipped in for a minute so that you could enable USB debugging ...more
Welcome back, my tenderfoot hackers! As hackers, we often are required to get past antivirus (AV) software or other security measures. To do so effectively, we need to have some understanding of how AV software works. In this tutorial, we will take a cursory view of how AV so ...more
Welcome back, my rookie hackers! As hackers, we are often faced with the hurdle of cryptography and encryption. In some cases, we use it to hide our actions and messages. Many applications and protocols use encryption to maintain confidentiality and integrity of data. To be a ...more
No more carrying around heavy laptops and thousands of Linux Live CDs and USBs to always be ready for pentesting on the fly! I hope you had a good Christmas and happy new year! Update1: Added the section "weaponizing your Android" where I talk about apps and fundamental Kali ...more
In the aftermath of the unindicted police killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, we've been told that the system worked as intended. When our legal system's outcome is at conflict with what a majority of Americans believe is just, it's clear that some changes are needed. B ...more
Welcome back, my novice hackers! Reconnaissance is one of the most important preparatory steps to hacking. As I have emphasized many times before here on Null Byte, you must know the operating system, the ports, the services, the applications, and sometimes even the language ...more
Climbing into bed and shutting your eyes each night is heavenly—but waking up the next morning isn't. We all hate dragging ourselves out of the comfort of sleep and into the groggy, exhausting work day. Yet starting your day doesn't have to be awful if you know how to hack you ...more
April Fool's Day, aka National Screw with Your Friends Day, is finally here. You can always pull a conventional prank, like strategically placing a whoopee cushion on your mom's chair, but that joke has been exhausted generations before smartphones were around. We live in a d ...more
My first encounter with a phablet was late last year with the AT&T version of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, having never touched or even seen its highly-acclaimed and pioneering predecessor. Initially, I was a bit overwhelmed by the enormous screen and taken aback by the dated st ...more
There's a lot of cool features rumored to be included in next year's HTC One 2 (M8), the follow up to the flagship HTC One smartphone, including a fingerprint scanner, Android 4.4 KitKat, and Sense 6.0, but it's just too far away to get really excited about yet. Besides, that ...more
Welcome back, my budding hackers! One of the most time-consuming, but necessary, activities in hacking is reconnaissance. Before we can hack a system, we need to know what operating system it's running, what ports are open, what services are running, and hopefully, what appli ...more
Deleting text messages on your iPhone may seem like a pretty simple task, but it's those really simple tasks that usually end up causing headaches later on. Data can stick around, even if you asked it not to, so there's always a slight chance that embarrassing and incriminatin ...more
Welcome back, my hacker trainees! A score of my readers have been begging for tutorials on how to hack Wi-Fi, so with this article, I'm initiating a new series dedicated to Wi-Fi hacks. This will probably be around 6-9 articles, starting with the basics of the technologies. I ...more
With warm weather comes bugs, and with bugs come bites, and with bites come itches. From ticks and spiders to mosquitoes and bees, insect bites come in sundry shapes and sizes, but they all commonly pull an itchy, red reaction out of our bodies. Once a bite fires up our immun ...more
Living in Los Angeles has given me the opportunity to attend a bunch of really cool events. I've been to Dodgers, Lakers, and Clippers games, a few concerts at the Staples Center, and a plethora of smaller joints. In all of these places, I've found a consistent annoyance—I wa ...more
This is a simple pattern, designed to produce a well-fitting mitten. Both the right and left mittens worked the same up to the shaping for the top of the mitten. A slight adjustment for making one right and one left, then they are worked the same. The gusset for the thumb cons ...more
Remote Desktop gives you access to your Windows 8 PC or device from wherever you are to run your applications and access your files remotely. Left an important document on your work computer? Want to run a legacy x86 desktop app from your Surface? You can use Remote Desktop ...more
As the iOS 18 beta continues, Apple's still investing time into fixing up iOS 17. Compared to iOS 17.4 and iOS 17.5, which both had over 30 new features and changes, iOS 17.6 is a relatively small software update for iPhone. But there are still some important things to know ab ...more
Apple's built-in search on iPhone is an incredibly valuable tool you shouldn't ignore or underutilize, and we're here to show you why. So, buckle in because this list covers hidden and lesser-known Spotlight features that will leave you wondering how you ever lived without Spo ...more
Some websites require you to perform a verification task so they know you're human and not a bot. It helps websites curb spam, abuse, unauthorized access, and cyberattacks but also adds an obstacle for anyone trying to visit their content. If you find it more of a nuisance tha ...more
When Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone, he pointed out that the biggest problem with physical keyboards on mobile phones is that they're always there, whether you need them or not. Now, 17 years later, a new company is bringing us full circle, giving us the best of both w ...more
Perhaps the biggest new feature within Apple's iOS 17.2 update for iPhone is Journal, a new journaling app designed to help you take a moment to reflect each day using reflection prompts, recommendations via on-device intelligence, and suggestions for recent activities and eve ...more
Apple Notes started with humble beginnings as a scratchpad of sorts, a place for us to stash some simple text for later. It's received many upgrades over the years, but Apple's latest iPhone software update is a game-changer. With all the new features for Apple Notes on iOS 1 ...more
Spotify lets you customize some aspects of your experience, whether on the desktop, web, Android, or iOS app. And one of the simplest yet coolest customizations you can perform is changing your playlist cover images. However, it doesn't work on all playlists. Usually, if ther ...more
A massive new feature just hit Apple Music, and it's the biggest thing to happen to Apple Music since Apple Music was even a thing. Over the years, Apple's music streaming service added helpful features like Apple Music TV, time-synced lyrics, and Apple Music Sing, and the la ...more
A massive new feature is about to hit Apple Music next week. Anyone can check it out, but only Apple Music subscribers through an Individual, Student, Family, or Apple One plan can take full advantage of the new perk that's been years in the making. Update: Apple Music Classi ...more
An iPad can serve as a second screen for a Mac via Sidecar, available since iPadOS 13, but Apple isn't the only manufacturer to support such a feature. Samsung has had a similar tool since One UI 3.1 that lets you turn certain Samsung Galaxy tablets into second displays for yo ...more
Android's back gesture, formerly the back button, has long been a blessing and a curse. While it gives us system-wide backward navigation, the action can sometimes be unpredictable. But Google may have a solution with its new predictive back gesture, which gives you an animate ...more
If you're doing the same tasks on your Android phone repeatedly each day — like playing a specific playlist at the gym, viewing work documents, or watching your favorite music video — you can save some time by automating your routine, turning each task into a one-tap gesture o ...more
You've probably already been using iOS 16 on your iPhone for months, but there's a good chance you haven't found or explored everything the new software has to offer. Health-related features are usually the first to be ignored or go unnoticed, but they're essential to know abo ...more
If you use Apple's Mail app on your iPhone for iCloud and third-party email accounts, install the new iOS update ASAP if you haven't already. While there's not a colossal number of new features, the latest tools and improvements are powerful enough to make the update feel like ...more
Apple finally lets us fix sent iMessages, and I can honestly say it's a game-changer. Editing messages after sending them can prevent miscommunication and allow you to fix embarrassing mistakes before the other person notices them. It's one of the Messages app's coolest new fe ...more
If you hate matching images, typing letters and numbers, solving math problems, and sliding puzzle pieces for CAPTCHA human verification, you'll love Apple's newest privacy feature for apps and websites. Generally, CAPTCHAs can be a massive nightmare on mobile devices. They a ...more
We've had access to real Safari extensions on iPhone and iPad for a year, and they've been available on Mac for a lot longer than that. To install the same one on all your devices, you always had to find the app in the App Store, install it, and enable the extension on each de ...more
You may not always want to, but there will probably be a time when you'll want to know if an email you send — like a job application or a support request — is opened by the recipient. It's actually easy to implement, and you may be using an email client on your device right no ...more
Google Voice has a hidden feature that lets you record any phone call you're participating in, and unlike other apps, it doesn't cost a dime. When it comes to recording phone conversations, you may think the worst and associate it with something shady like obsessive exes and ...more
Apple's bringing big changes to your iPhone's lock screen in iOS 16, and one of those changes lets you pick an always-updating wallpaper for your local weather conditions. If you don't want to wait until the fall for the stable iOS 16 version and don't want to install any iOS ...more
Your iPhone's built-in Voice Memos app is a great way to record the audio around you, whether it be conversations, lectures, meetings, interviews, discussions, chitchat, gossip, or other kinds of talks. But if your goal is to record audio on the down-low without being noticed, ...more
The Messages app for iOS and iPadOS has a lot of hidden features, but one in particular can save you time and energy whenever you need to forward or copy and paste messages from within an SMS, MMS, or iMessage conversation. The tricks I'm about to show work for forwarding tex ...more
In the 21st century, we're all looking for ways to stay private, especially on our electronic devices. We have big tech corporations, enemy countries, malicious hackers, and other prying eyes watching our every move, so it's only natural to want to limit what they can see. Mak ...more
Android 12 comes with new features and upgrades that any mobile gamer can appreciate, including Instant Play, which lets you play games instantly without downloading them first. Even better, there's Game Dashboard, which adds shortcuts for screenshots, screen recordings, and m ...more
Google Lens has easily been one of the more useful AR apps and a tantalizing tease of life with smartglasses in the not-so-distant future. Now, Apple has its own version of Lens, dubbed Live Text, built right into iOS 15 and iPadOS 15. Like Lens, Live Text can copy text from ...more
One of the best recent outings in the Marvel universe is the animated series What If...?, which explores alternate universe takes on various superhero storylines that deliver fascinating scenarios if one single factor had been different in the story. Using that framing, I'd l ...more
So now that we know what the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro and their respective mini and Max versions are all about, you've probably made your decision on whether or not to upgrade (or swap over from Android) during this cycle. If you've been hesitating on pulling the trigger o ...more
After the dust settled from Apple's annual iPhone event, there's not a lot to get hyped up about the iPhone 13 lineup, particularly if you upgraded your smartphone last year. Sure, the iPhone 13, along with the premium Pro and Pro Max and the pint-sized Mini variants, get spe ...more
The tech world was taken by surprise this week with the unexpected unveiling of Snap's augmented reality Spectacles smartglasses. So far, the reaction has been incredibly positive, partly due to the fact that Snap has been underpromising the delivery of AR smartglasses for se ...more
Whether it becomes mandatory or not to show your COVID-19 vaccination card at events, restaurants, bars, hotels, airports, and other public places, it's a good idea to digitize the paper card on your smartphone so that it's always with you. It's also wise to give yourself quic ...more
Apple's new iOS 14.5 will be coming out very soon, and that's even more evident now with the release of the iOS 14.5 Release Candidate (RC) on Tuesday, April 20. Anyone can install this update and get all of the same features iOS 14.5 will give everyone for iPhone; only you'll ...more
When you want to brighten up your iPhone's screen, you likely use Control Center's brightness slider to increase your nits (especially if you've disabled auto-brightness). But once you max it out, it doesn't seem like the display can get any brighter. However, depending on you ...more
When iOS 14 was released, the "Favorites" widget, which provided quick access to your most-used contacts, was nowhere to be seen. There's a workaround that brings it back via the Shortcuts app, but the original Favorites widget was better all around. For those of you looking f ...more
I'm always looking for solutions to problems people are having with their smartphones. This means I spend a lot of time browsing forums and release sites looking for new apps. In doing so, I find a lot of apps that don't quite solve a major problem, but are nonetheless pretty ...more
When Microsoft unveiled Mesh a couple of weeks ago, the move revealed a major part of Microsoft's next steps toward dominating the augmented reality space, particularly with regard to enterprise customers. But aside from the general details contained in the announcement, what ...more
The year is still off to a roaring start, with augmented reality at the center of nearly everything, from enterprise solutions, to entertainment, to safety. In the realm of streaming, the Marvel universe got another dose of augmented reality marketing help thanks to Disney Pl ...more