Bit Map

This design is super simple and is the easiest invisible door that I've ever seen. Unlike designs that use horizontal pistons, the redstone here is completely hidden underground, and the door itself doesn't create an unsightly dip or gap in the wall. Here's what the mechanism ...more

Every year, Apple releases a new version of iOS. Each iteration promises new features to make using your iPhone that much better. This year, iOS 13 introduces over 200 new features and changes, including system-wide Dark Mode for the first time on iPhone. That said, you might ...more

The worlds of augmented reality and virtual reality are closely linked in many ways. That means it's smart for AR insiders to keep a close on new developments in VR. If you have been paying attention, you know that Oculus CTO John Carmack is one one of the most important think ...more

Silence spreads over these mountains like nothing I've ever felt. If I didn't have Moby blasting in my earphones, there'd probably be no other sounds around. Well, except for someone, Phil probably, murmuring in a nearby tent just low enough to make his words indiscernible. W ...more

With the release of the Pixel 2 XL and the iPhone X, smartphones have hit a new high not just in price, but also raw processing power. These new flagships not only cost more than twice as much as an Xbox One or PlayStation 4, they have also become almost as powerful as far as ...more

Take a close look at the image above. These bugs spread a deadly parasite that infects thousands of people each year. They also live in the US, and it's important to know where they are and whether you need to worry that they're carrying a dangerous infection. Triatoma bugs a ...more

By combining years of web search advancements, natural language processing, and even DeepMind's artificial intelligence, Google Assistant hopes to change the way you interact with your devices. If you're familiar with Google's previous services, Google Assistant is like Google ...more

I am an English major physically allergic to all algebraic formulas, so you're unlikely to get any help from me when it comes to solving any expressions. But in the glorious technological age we live in, there are plenty of apps that actually make math and problem solving fun, ...more

Ever since Facebook announced its partnership with Luxxotica brand Ray-Ban to produce smartglasses, the augmented reality space has been on high alert awaiting more details. Unfortunately, those details have been scarce, until now. During a session at the Paris Viva Technolog ...more

The team over at Spatial isn't done innovating its way through augmented reality in 2020. Just days after adding a mobile option to its groundbreaking Spatial virtual collaboration product, the company is releasing Tele, a new app geared toward more casual, AR-powered video c ...more

A modern iPhone is capable of running sophisticated, exquisitely-rendered games that rival titles on current-generation consoles. However, there is some value in classic video game titles, whether you grew up playing games on the Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System, and ...more

It's safe to say that we can call the annual ranking of AR investments a holiday tradition at Next Reality. Following our 2018 and 2017 editions of the biggest AR investments, we've expanded the list to include the top 25 this year. While there are many familiar names at the ...more

So the new iPhones have arrived. Like last year, Apple released three iPhones in three different sizes that vary in price and specs. There's the base model iPhone 11, and then there are the real deal, premium models, the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max. The iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro ...more

Since the Razer Phone's announcement in 2017, we've seen a new subgroup of phones emerge. Gaming phones are now a thing, leading to companies like ASUS creating phones that are thoroughly optimized for the mobile gaming experience. And with their second iteration, they perfect ...more

The photos and videos you take with your iPhone contain bits of information, known as metadata, including the location where they were taken. This metadata makes it easier for Photos to organize your media, but put these photos and videos in the wrong hands and anyone can find ...more

As I've mentioned in recent days, it was refreshing to discover that Microsoft's HoloLens 2 stage production was every bit as accurate as presented (check out my hands-on test of the device for more on that). But beyond watching Microsoft's deft HoloLens 2 stagecraft, and try ...more

While Google isn't ready to commit to a wide release of the AR walking navigation mode for Google Maps, the company has begun testing the feature with members of its Local Guides crowdsourcing community. As a result, I've had the opportunity to test an alpha build of the feat ...more

Your iPhone just went missing, and now you're panicking. You need it for work, to get around, to contact your friends and family, and pretty much everything else in your life. So, what are the chances you might get it back? The odds may be stacked against you unless it's just ...more

If waveguide display maker DigiLens has its way, enterprise businesses and consumers will soon be able to purchase smartglasses for less than $500 — as long as they can supply their own computing and battery power. On Monday, the company unveiled DigiLens Crystal, a reference ...more

While Leap Motion has given makers a DIY solution for building their own augmented reality headset with Project North Star, a self-described "AR wonk" has taken the blueprints one step further by creating an untethered version. Noah Zerkin, a research and development project ...more

On Monday, with just days left before Christmas, Lowe's dropped a surprise augmented reality treat in everyone's lap: a brand new Magic Leap One app. With little fanfare or warning, the Lowe's Showroom app popped up in the Magic Leap World section on the Magic Leap One as a f ...more

Ever since the announcement of the Razer Phone, a wave of gaming smartphones started to hit the market. With ASUS being such a big name in gaming, it made sense for them to throw their hat in the ring. The result is the ROG Phone. And with this first try, ASUS has topped the r ...more

Welcome to the first annual Next Reality 30, our list of people who've made the biggest impact on the augmented reality space in the last 12 months — and what a 12-month roller-coaster ride it's been. Apple introduced ARKit-powered apps last fall, Google launched ARCore for An ...more

Business cards are a great way to keep tabs on the contacts we network with. So why shouldn't our smartphones make them even more useful? Enter Google Lens, which will help you save, search, and expand on the contact information found on all of the business cards you've collec ...more

Apple's Animojis took the world by storm with their ease of use and fluidity. They added new life to your emojis by mapping your face with the technology that lives inside the iPhone X. Now, Samsung is also adding new life to emjojis with the introduction of AR Emojis in the G ...more

It finally happened. Magic Leap has given the world its first glimpse at its debut device, the Magic Leap One Creator Edition. At 9 a.m. ET, the company flipped the switch on a huge website update that splashed the homepage with images of what is now confirmed to be an augmen ...more

Mobile AR developer Blippar has achieved a breakthrough by releasing what appears to be the first commercially-available AR navigation app. The company's new app, AR City, gives users overlay directions for walking routes as well as points of interest. The app is available vi ...more

Get ready to step up your game, explorers! Google Maps is releasing an update for its gamified program to encourage reviewing of businesses and other locations within the Google Maps app. Local Guides was introduced in 2015 as a fun, interactive way for users to contribute to ...more

Apple gave us the ability to invert colors on the screen a very long time ago. Then they gave us grayscale mode in iOS 8, Night Shift in iOS 9, and the red screen filter in iOS 10. While the long-awaited "Dark Mode" finally appeared in iOS 13, iOS 11 and iOS 12 both have a dec ...more

It's official — the newest version of Google's mobile operating system is called Android 8.0 Oreo, and it's in the process of rolling out to many different devices. Oreo has plenty of changes in store, ranging from revamped looks to under-the-hood improvements, so there's tons ...more

If anyone has every told you that they see music they listen to, they have synesthesia. It's a fascinating neurological phenomenon where people experience crossed responses to stimuli, and no one knows exactly how common this is. A rough estimate claims that one in every 5,000 ...more

If you have a long commute, it only makes sense to catch a bit of shuteye while you're headed to work on the train or bus. The only problem with this is that, if you're napping a little too hard, you might end up oversleeping and missing your stop when the subway pulls into yo ...more

After what appeared to be an issue with the Windows Store for HoloLens not showing many newer applications, including one that I had released over a month ago, Microsoft finally squashed the bug. So, at first glance, it would seem as if there were lots of new HoloLens projects ...more

3D modeling is usually a very long and complicated process. Manipulating the thousands to millions of vertices, faces, and triangles to the correct shape you want is just the first part of the process, and can take a good while depending on the level of detail needed. From th ...more

We all got a little jealous of the iPhone 7 Plus's dual-lens camera during the Apple Keynote in September. It's okay, you can admit it. But just because your Android doesn't have two lenses doesn't mean you can't recreate the fun bokeh effect of the iPhone's now wildly popular ...more

When you're driving, the last thing you need to be doing is messing around with your phone. But these days, people expect you to be available at all times, so the text messages continue to flow in while you're on the road. It's a terrible distraction, and one that is responsib ...more

We've all been there. You're driving along with Google Maps pointing the way when you get a call from your friend asking you how much longer it'll be until you show up. You try to offer some lame excuse about how something came up last-minute, but you're interrupted, quite rud ...more

Android 6.0 Marshmallow added a new permissions system that can make your digital life much more secure. Unlike previous versions, apps now have to ask for your consent before they can access certain data, which puts you firmly in the driver's seat. As if that weren't enough, ...more

Smartphones don't generally play nice with tripods, so videos taken with our handheld devices make terrible source material for time-lapse photography. Back in August, Instagram countered this dilemma with an app called Hyperlapse that used an image stabilization algorithm to ...more

Auto manufacturers are slowly starting to debut models with Google's new Android Auto software baked into the dashboard console. Starting with the 2016 model year, we should see vehicles from Honda, Ford, Chevrolet, and many others sporting the new software. Now, many manufac ...more

Welcome back, my budding hackers! With this article, I am initiating a new series that so many of you have been asking for: Hacking Web Applications. In previous tutorials, we have touched on some of the techniques and tools for web app hacking. We looked at web app vulnerab ...more

One of the biggest hits this past fall wasn't a movie, television show, or book—it was an unassuming podcast called Serial, which centered around an unsolved murder from 1999 of a high school student in Maryland. Adnan, the accused murderer, says he had nothing to do with the ...more

Location Services, a native feature on iPhones since iOS 6, is used to pinpoint your approximate location using a combination of GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cell tower information. Apple uses this on their smartphones for many useful reasons: so that you can tag locations in In ...more

Keeping expensive mobile devices safe and secure is a priority for most of us, but the process of repeatedly unlocking a phone or tablet can seem like a pointless task. This leads to disabling the lock screen altogether, especially when in a safe place (e.g., home, office, car ...more

Instagram introduced Photo Maps back in 2012, a feature allowing users to showcase where they've taken photos and explore where others have been, all through an interactive map. Through the hyperlinked location at the top of each photo, you can go through a timeline of all of ...more

Google's new camera app has a highly innovative and unique feature dubbed Lens Blur, and the most interesting thing about it is not necessarily what it does, so much as how it does it. You take a picture, then slide your phone in an upward motion, and the app creates 2 new pi ...more

Integrated rather secretively into iOS 7.1, CarPlay gives a better hands-on experience when driving, working with the car's built-in display to help you find directions, send and receive calls and text messages, control music, and more—without having to fumble around with your ...more

There are two types of tablet users in the world—those who like their quick settings up top, and those who want them on the bottom. I fall into the latter category, and there are a couple of reasons for it. The first is because the Nexus 7 has both notification and quick sett ...more

The augmented reality industry has grown steadily over the past four years, but now it is on a collision course with uber-popular non-fungible tokens technology, with Looking Glass and music artist Reggie Watts among the latest to strike while the iron is hot. Meanwhile, Sket ...more

5G is undoubtedly the future of mobile networks, and there's a good chance your next phone will have it. But just like with 4G, as carriers race to get the best 5G coverage, the ones running behind are abusing marketing terms to make themselves seem further ahead than they act ...more

It seems like all tech companies want to know where we are. Even Apple and Google have been caught abusing their location access on iOS and Android. Luckily, there are apps that can trick your phone into thinking it's somewhere it's not. As The New York Times recently detaile ...more

Apple's Reminders app is essential for those of us with a forgetful memory. But a standard Reminders entry isn't foolproof. They aren't great if you need to do something right when you get somewhere, since it can be tricky to set a specific time for that reminder. That's why A ...more

Every fall, we can expect a few things: leaves changing colors, cooler temperatures, and Samsung and Apple releasing new phones that fanboys and fangirls will argue about until the following year. This year, Samsung is mixing it up, releasing two phones in the Galaxy Note seri ...more

We've all been there — using Google Maps for navigation and waiting for the app to find our location. As we drive around, we keep hoping it will get a lock in time to make the next turn. Well in the US, we finally have a solution to this problem, and it's the OnePlus 7 Pro. T ...more

Newer businesses, or older businesses looking for more traffic and sales, often offer enticing deals to attract customers. On Yelp, any business has the option to provide a deal to users, which is essentially a Groupon-like coupon. But how do you find these deals in the Yelp a ...more

One of the best things about Android is the ability to customize every aspect of your device to make it your own. However, unless you have prior knowledge or experience with every single setting available to you, you might have missed a few critical features without even knowi ...more

Your social security number, credit card information, and medical history can fall into the wrong hands if you're not careful about how and where you share your data online. If you really care about your data, there are tools and techniques you can utilize to protect yourself ...more

Now that we've officially seen the HoloLens 2 and Microsoft has shown off the improvements and new superpowers of the augmented reality headset, what about the specs? Luckily, Microsoft has laid bare the full specifications for its next-generation headset. Let's dive in and s ...more

In about 27% of all car crashes, someone was using their cell phone. You may think texting is the big problem here, but many fail to realize that even the smallest smartphone interaction could spell disaster. Thankfully, Google Maps has rolled out an overdue feature that'll he ...more

Nothing beats a human translator, but Google Translate and other software-based solutions have developed into decent alternatives for help with basic translations. Need an English word translated into German? No problem — but what if you need to have a conversation with someon ...more