One of my favorite perks of this job is the opportunity to try out all the big flagship phones each year. Whether it's rating their suitability for a particular use-case or just entering their specs into our comparison tool, we have to get our hands on all major phones release ...more
Can lightning strike twice? Niantic is betting that it can with its latest augmented reality game based on the best-selling multimedia franchise Harry Potter. If the developer's name is unfamiliar, then perhaps Ingress, the company's first mobile game, which not only earned a ...more
Over the last few years, the only thing teased by Magic Leap more than the Magic Leap One itself has been the company's flagship gaming title Dr. Grordbort's Invaders. The game, developed by New Zealand studio Weta Workshop, finally got its debut last week during the L.E.A.P. ...more
Following the launch of the Magic Leap One earlier this month, the device and the company took a few hits from early reviewers. But it turns out those were just love taps compared to the absolute scorched earth acidic screed penned this weekend by someone well credentialed to ...more
Google just released the second developer preview of the Android 8.1 update for Nexus and Pixel devices, and even though it's just a point-one release, there are lots of cool changes. Before you run off to join the Android beta program and try the new version, it's worth readi ...more
Microsoft recently released "Seeing AI," an app aimed to help the blind understand their surroundings. As Microsoft puts it, "the app narrates the world around you by turning the visual world into an audible experience." We asked Matthew Chao, the brother of one of our founde ...more
In a world increasingly regulated by computers, bugs are like real-life cheat codes. They give you the power to break the rules and do good or bad without ever leaving your seat. And government agencies around the world are discovering and stockpiling unreported bugs as cyberw ...more
Cleanliness is next to godliness. My interpretation of that age-old adage means that keeping your house clean is just as un-fun and boring as being a goody two shoes. That's why they call things like laundry and doing dishes "chores," I assume. Yuck. Lucky for you, though, we ...more
Even the most seasoned cook is always looking for ways to make cooking easier and cleaning up after meal prep a breeze. There are a million and one tricks and tips out there to simplify your kitchen routines, but some of them are more valuable than others. Don't Miss: 5 Commo ...more
YouTube's massive user base comprises almost one third of all people on the internet, and collectively, users spend well over 100 million hours on the site watching billions of videos each day. Add it all up, and this means that YouTube is viewed by more people than any U.S. c ...more
If you don't want to dress up as a vampire, witch, werewolf, or zombie again this Halloween, step things up a notch and go viral. There have been a ton of funny memes and absurd news since last October, so the only hard part is settling on the right one for inspiration for you ...more
There are over 1.6 million apps on the Google Play Store, which makes it the largest collection of mobile apps on the planet. However, a large portion of this total is occupied by apps with overlapping functions—think social media, news, weather, music players, and various oth ...more
Pumpkin carving and decorating is a favorite October pastime. After you've carved an amazing design or face into a pumpkin or two, you want to show it off through your window or set it out on your porch for the neighbors to see. But, without knowing the tricks to save your ho ...more
Aluminum foil is one of those things that every cook, experienced or just starting out, has in their kitchen. And while we may think we know how useful this handy material can be, there are hundreds of ways we could be utilizing tinfoil to make our lives a whole lot easier. 1 ...more
While Snap may eventually compete with Apple and Samsung in selling smartglasses to consumers, today it is helping them achieve their business objectives via augmented reality. That's not all that's new with Snap. the company has also brokered a major content deal with Univer ...more
We've reached the point in the trajectory of augmented reality's growth where AR advertising experiences are becoming commonplace tactics rather than rare experiments. Some of the more impressive examples of AR ads to emerge recently come from Hulu, Coinbase and Ray-Ban via S ...more
For enterprise augmented reality platform makers, remote assistance apps represent one of the greatest opportunities to show off the power of immersive computing. These apps enable experts to guide front-line workers or customers with AR prompts and other content in the field ...more
The landscape of the augmented reality space is broad, diverse, and constantly shifting, perhaps more so than any other vertical in technology. At the same time, major players are attempting to standardize various hardware designs and delivery methods, while still others are r ...more
Smartphone technology has become as ubiquitous as automobiles. In Austin, Texas, a city that is widely known as the "Live Music Capital of the World," smartphones have been embraced by the music community not just as a way to document and promote, but to create music. A rock ...more
The year in augmented reality 2019 started with the kind of doom and gloom that usually signals the end of something. Driven in large part by the story we broke in January about the fall of Meta, along with similar flameouts by ODG and Blippar, the virtual shrapnel of AR ventu ...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
Android's settings menu is actually pretty daunting. There are options for nearly everything, so in the sea of various menus and submenus, it's easy to overlook important privacy and security settings. On Google's Pixel phones in particular, there are 20 such settings that you ...more
Twitter's official iOS app is adequate if you're not much of a tweeter, but if you are, there's a lot of useful features that are missing. Luckily, there are plenty of free Twitter clients available that you can use on your iPhone. These third-party apps have features such as ...more
The rise and fall of Meta, the Silicon Valley-based augmented reality startup that looked to challenge the likes of Microsoft's HoloLens, and others, took just six years. Now, as the story of the company draws to a close, we finally have some deeper insight into what exactly ...more
Net neutrality is dead and your internet service providers can collect all the data they want. While VPNs are a great way to protect some of that privacy, they're not perfect. There is another option, though, called Noisy, which was created by Itay Hury. It floods your ISP wit ...more
The calendar app is one of the unsung heroes found within your iPhone. It's the ultimate personal assistant that you've come to rely on to keep track of your schedule and ensure you never miss a class or meeting, all while reminding you of upcoming birthdays and deadlines to h ...more
In the Android community, Samsung's slow updates have long been the accepted norm. With the Note 8's recent Android Oreo update, Samsung completed annual version updates to their 2017 flagship lineup. Now is a great time to look back on how Samsung has fared with updates over ...more
After testing a series of Android 8.0 builds, Essential hit the reset button and jumped to Android 8.1 Oreo. The beta program didn't last long, as Essential has now released the official 8.1 update to the masses. The features from the 8.0 betas are all still there, plus a few ...more
Sure, emojis are all the rage, but there's not an emoji for every emotion or feeling just yet. That's where emoticons come into play, emoji's older typographical sibling. Unfortunately, emoticons can be hard to type out, easy to forget, and ASCII art, in general, can be pretty ...more
Selling alt-coins like Stellar (XLM) or Ripple (XRP) in exchange for more widespread coins like Ethereum (ETH) or Bitcoin (BTC) can be a daunting task if you're new to cryptocurrency. Though you'll still need to do your research to avoid potential disasters, Binance takes the ...more
Using Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH) to buy alt-coins like TRON (TRX), Stellar (XLM), or Ripple (XRP) can seem intimidating if you're new to cryptocurrency. Though you'll still need to do your research to avoid potential disasters, Binance takes the hassle out of trading digi ...more
The iPhone X was released in November 2017, and the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus dropped right before it, but the hottest news right now revolves around the 2018 iPhone releases. The rumor mill regarding the iPhone X's successor started churning out speculations on names, cameras, disp ...more
You know Moana's a rock-solid pick for Halloween this year. The question is, how far will you go to become Moana? Are you going to just slap on a cream skirt and a red bandeau? Or do you want to go all out and end up with the finished product like YouTuber Gladzy Kei did? Alre ...more
We started with our system manager in the previous lesson in our series on building dynamic user interfaces, but to get there, aside from the actual transform, rotation, and scaling objects, we need to make objects out of code in multiple ways, establish delegates and events, ...more
Those of us who are actively developing for the HoloLens, and for the other augmented and mixed reality devices and platforms that currently exist, are constantly looking for the next bit of news or press conference about the space. Our one hope is to find any information abou ...more
When making a convincing mixed reality experience, audio consideration is a must. Great audio can transport the HoloLens wearer to another place or time, help navigate 3D interfaces, or blur the lines of what is real and what is a hologram. Using a location-based trigger (hots ...more
In the past, to see a pre-constructed state of the house that you would one day live in, you had to be able to read blueprints or hire an artist to sketch it out. Later came the ability to have a 3D rendering of that house on a screen, but you'd still have to work hard to envi ...more
If you've been following NextReality, you've surely seen me around, or at least have seen my articles. My name is Jason Odom, aka Subere23, and it's about time for a formal introduction. My background primarily falls in the computer game industry, and I have co-owned a small ...more
The latest update to iOS 10 brought with it a number of great new features. Of these, the one that will likely have the most impact on people's iOS experience in the long term are the new apps and stickers for iMessage. Stickers make up the vast majority of what you'll find i ...more
Thanks to the Edge variants, Samsung's Galaxy S phones are just a few millimeters off in body size when compared to the Note series, and just 0.2 inches smaller when it comes to displays. Now that the two flagship models are almost identical in size—with matching curved displa ...more
Whether you're a seasoned wine drinker or just beginning to explore the wondrous world of fermented grapes, finding fantastic wine on a budget isn't as difficult as one may think. With these 8 tips, you'll see how and why you need not shell out $45 to get a great-tasting, high ...more
Chrome apps and extensions are powerful tools for students: they can help optimize your web browsing experience by helping you take notes, check your grammar as you compose documents and emails, and even help you squeeze a little more juice out of your laptop's battery by free ...more
Greetings all. Today I intend to append a new series to my mini-collection of posts. This series will consist of informative guides for the purpose of depicting certain aspects of the White Hat profession that I believe are of profound importance. Furthermore, I will keep thi ...more
Oven space is scarce on that fated fourth Thursday of November. Even if you can find a spare space for pumpkin pie on the bottom shelf, you risk turkey drippings overflowing from above and ruining your beautiful dessert — not to mention a burnt crust from different temperature ...more
To steal a quote from Mean Girls, Halloween is the one night when a girl can dress like a total slut and no one can say anything about it—but why do girls get to have all the fun? Why can't guys use the day to be good looking? Scary good looking? Well, use one of the followin ...more
Over the past several weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of test driving Samsung’s next big thing, the Galaxy S4. After putting the GS4 through its paces, I have a clear picture of what this device is capable of. I’ve covered the features of the device before, and now I’ll tell you ...more
Video: . Step 1: Today We Are Going to Draw an Old Man's Face. Let's Start with a Rectangle in Perspective. That's Right, We Should Start with Curving in Some Basic Shapes and Then to Make the Face from That. We Should Put Down the Horizon Line with Two Vanishing Points. Draw ...more
I don't know how many of you had this experience in your youth, but when I was a kid, I used to actively think about what would happen if I suddenly woke up in a fantasy land, or were to pass through a portal into another space and time. I knew it wouldn't really happen, but w ...more
This two-part series (second part here) will teach you literally everything you need to know in order to make pretty much anything out of leather. There are some advanced techniques that I don't cover in this guide, but these are the basics. With these skills, you'll be able ...more
Thrift stores! As a Steampunk, they can be your best friend, but it's easy to make a tragic mistake. This hands-on guide will help you navigate the murky waters of successful thrifting in order to find the hidden gems that will make your Steampunk outfit complete! Thrift Stor ...more
While I am a writer with a degree in Creative Writing, I haven't published any Steampunk fiction. However, as a panelist and track director, I've been on panels with many well-known Steampunk writers and have gleaned insight from the things they've said. I've compiled some of ...more
OSAGYEFO DR. KWAME NKRUMAH (1909-72) Founder and Father of the Nation Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first Prime Minister and President of Ghana, stands out not only among the Big Six but also among the greatest statesmen of history. It was he who canalized the discontent of ...more
Customization has always been the main draw of Android for me, but Apple has an impressive feature on iOS 16 that lets iPhone users create customized emoji wallpapers for their home and lock screens. While Android doesn't have something like that built-in by default, it's easy ...more
As protests surge in the wake of George Floyd's murder by a Minneapolis police officer, powerful photographs and videos from the demonstrations have gripped the world, putting our nation's very real and very justifiable widespread civil unrest out into the digital world. Unfor ...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
Whether we like it or not, our personal information and smartphones are tied together at the hip. The former needs the latter to deliver a personalized experience that matches our individual needs. This personal data, however, makes your phone a prime target for thieves of all ...more
Apple CEO Tim Cook has said that augmented reality (or, AR for short) will "change everything." But what, exactly, is augmented reality? Generally, augmented reality refers to the process of presenting virtual objects and imagery — usually through a wearable lens or external ...more
Streaming movies and TV shows on phones is more popular today than ever, but what about when you're on a plane, have a limited data plan, or will be in a no-service area? You'll want to download your movies and TV shows instead. While Netflix is excellent, you can't rent or do ...more
The iPhone XR offers a discounted experience compared to the expensive iPhone XS and XS Max. However, that lower price tag comes with some caveats, such as "Haptic Touch" in lieu of 3D Touch. If you think these two "touch" features are the same, think again. Before you get an ...more
Smartphones are like high tech buckets that collect our personal information through constant use. This has some obvious benefits, like getting a more personalized experience with our devices. On the other hand, this data is a tempting target for bad actors looking to make a b ...more