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Who doesn't love Star Wars? No one, that's who. And if you love Stars Wars, logic would follow that you like lightsabers, so central are they to the tale's mythology. It's part sword, part laser, and makes a sound like a humming motor have multigasms. If I saw one in real life ...more

There are seemingly endless photography apps for the iPhone—it is perhaps one of the most popular arenas for application developers. We've covered a few in Giveaway Tuesdays, but nothing comprehensive. We would be remiss to omit the two most popular frontrunners—Hipstamatic ( ...more

Most of the animated characters and animals we've seen in augmented reality are still fairly basic in terms of visual fidelity. And because many are still impressed by simply seeing 3D figures properly scaled and tracked alongside real-world objects, this approach has worked . ...more

Just days after Google released the official Android 11 update, Samsung already had a pre-beta build of One UI 3.0 available for developers to test their apps on. So this year's main OS upgrade is likely hitting Galaxy phones even earlier than we thought. Some features in the ...more

If there's one tool at your photo editing disposal to instantly dramatize a picture, it's the vignette. It shades away the corners of a photo, which highlights the center of the image without any effort on your part. In the past, you'd have to look outside the Photos app on yo ...more

Unlike many other OEMs, Samsung has two prolific phone series they release each year, the Galaxy S series and Galaxy Note series. At first, the latter was the bleeding edge of technology, but in recent years, the line has been blurred. So what do you get with the Note 10+ over ...more

Taste is certainly relative. When you look at Central American architecture and notice all of the bright pastel colors, then move just a thousand or so miles to the north and see that buildings in the United States are mostly painted in earth tones, this becomes abundantly cle ...more

Increasingly, cutting-edge platforms like blockchain technology and augmented reality are overlapping, forging new digital frontiers that promise to change the way we interact with the virtual and the real world. The latest effort in this area features blockchain startup WAX, ...more

Apple released Portrait mode for the iPhone 7 Plus in the iOS 10.1 update, which creates a simulated bokeh effect that blurs out the background and makes the subject pop out in the scene. It's still technically a beta feature since Apple does have some kinks to iron out, but i ...more

We recently covered a set of ported apps from the new cloud-based smartphone, the Nextbit Robin. These ported APKs brought two of the Robin's slick new stock apps—Camera and Gallery—to any other device, but the launcher was conspicuously absent. Don't Miss: Get the Nextbit Ro ...more

Lidar, a technology first used by meteorologists and aerospace engineers and then adopted in self-driving vehicles, has slowly crept into consumer electronics over the last five years. If you have a Pro model iPhone or iPad, there's a good chance it has a lidar sensor, and you ...more

Social media apps like Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok have plenty of editing tools that go beyond the basics, but there are still a lot of things they can't do. So if you want to apply interesting, unique effects to your photos and videos for social media, you'll need to add ...more

Google is going all in with Childish Gambino as its musical champion for augmented reality, as the duo has now dropped its second AR collaboration of the year. After Google launched his Playmoji for Pixel's Playground app earlier this year, Gambino, the musical alter ego of e ...more

While augmented reality made more of a cameo appearance during Samsung's official grand unveiling of the Galaxy S10 line-up on Wednesday, it's the company's move into 5G connectivity that has huge implications for AR. After the 2018 edition of Samsung Unpacked cast augmented ...more

One of the first things you'll notice about iOS 11 is how the Notification Center now has the same interface as your lock screen. It's pretty confusing at first, and it's pissed off tons of users, but it's really not that bad once you learn all of its features. There really i ...more

Augmented and mixed reality experiences attempt to break us out of windowed computing experiences and allow us to place software anywhere in the room. But that software doesn't have to take a rectangular form—theoretically, the web doesn't have to restrict itself to a page in ...more

It's already that time of year again—LG has unveiled its latest high-end smartphone, dubbed the G4. In past iterations, LG released its flagship devices in the fall. But slowly over the course of the past 2 years, the release schedule has been bumped up to be more in line with ...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

Google's new camera, aptly named Google Camera, has been all the rage since it was released onto Google Play last Friday. The main reason is the amazing Lens Blur feature that adds depth-of-field Lytro effects to photos, without the use of any expensive accessories or extra ha ...more

When Apple takes the stage next week, we have no idea what version of iOS it will release. For months it seemed like a given that we would, of course, see iOS 13 seeded to our iPhones. Now, we aren't sure if Apple will tout iOS 13 or iOS 13.1, since the latter is now the focus ...more

Facebook added a new feature that lets you post 3D versions of your portrait mode photos for all your family and friends to see on their smartphones, computers, and virtual reality goggles. These new 3D photos add a whole new dimension to your images with movement and more dep ...more

There are many different ways and many different apps that allow you to censor a racy photo and then share it to Instagram or Facebook. If you're in a time crunch and don't have the time or the patience to deal with something like Photoshop, then Snapseed is a great and easy a ...more

When you want to see something far away with a little more clarity or you're having a hard time reading small letters right in front of you, you can point your iPhone's camera at the subject and "pinch" to zoom for a better look. But there's actually something built into iOS f ...more

Just over a month ago, Google made its camera app available to all devices running Android 4.4 and higher. Originally exclusive to Nexus devices, the app got a UI overhaul and a new Lens Blur mode, but lost some features in the transition. A few weeks ago, Google began adding ...more

Apple shocked us all yesterday when it released iOS 13.1 developer beta 1. It was an unprecedented move since iOS 13.0 is still in beta testing and since Apple has never pushed out a "point" beta release before the stable base version. And now, you can get your hands on iOS 13 ...more

Apple's upcoming update for the iPhone, iOS 13, is introducing over 200 new features. Many of those were never formally announced, instead silently released in new updates to the beta. After eight developer beta cycles, we were anxiously awaiting the release of developer beta ...more

This time last year, we got our first taste of what mobile app developers could do in augmented reality with Apple's ARKit. Most people had never heard of Animojis. Google's AR platform was still Tango. Snapchat introduced its World Lens AR experiences. Most mobile AR experien ...more

The software released in the 2015 iterations of the Samsung Galaxy line of devices—the S6, S6 Active, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+, and Note 5—have some pretty neat camera features that give these devices arguably the best smartphone camera on the market today. Out of the box, Samsung's ...more

Apple has pulled quite the headscratcher in anticipation of its big iPhone unveiling next week. Its latest iPhone update, iOS 13.0, is just on the horizon, going through eight beta versions so far. And yet, before that software's official release, the company has started beta ...more

Razer just made a big step into the mobile industry by releasing an absolute beast of a smartphone. The gaming-centric Razer Phone tries to provide the best experience for its target audience: Gamers. With that in mind, they created a top-tier device with some of the best spec ...more

One of the best things about Android is the ability to customize your phone to your liking. From changing the layout of icons to finding the perfect wallpaper to reflect your current mood, there's a wide range of tools to make your phone yours. One of the easiest ways is to t ...more

When Apple first introduced Live Photos in iOS 9, it was a big hit for those who had 3D Touch devices — but one thing this cool feature was sorely missing was editing options. Thankfully, Apple has fixed that in iOS 11 by turning Live Photos into a complete package with editin ...more

Smartphone cameras are so good nowadays that there's almost no reason to own a point and shoot. Once the megapixel spec race was finally settled (hint: more isn't always better), manufacturers started focusing on the quality of their camera sensors, which has led to a huge jum ...more

Making sure you have the best gallery app available for your Android device used to be as easy as just installing QuickPic. But late last year, Android's top photo-viewing app was sold to a company who is notorious for permission spamming, so QuickPic quickly lost everyone's a ...more

Google recently updated the camera software for the Nexus 5, and in doing so, made the app available to all devices running Android KitKat. This means that not only do we get a nice new camera interface on our phones, but we also get the benefit of an expanded development comm ...more