For once there is good news — surprising news, but good news — in the fight against antibiotic-resistant organisms. A recent study found that Staphylococcus aureus bacteria is becoming more sensitive to some key drugs used to treat it. Helio S. Sader, Senior Director at JMI L ...more
We continue to field stories underscoring the strong trends of Investment in augmented reality in various sectors. This week, one company strengthens their offerings to the enterprise sector, while two other companies capitalize on the promise presented by augmented reality to ...more
The new battlefield AR game announced by Skyrocket Toys today is similar to the childhood game "Tag", except the stakes are much, much higher. Skyrocket Toys are known for selling drones and other gadgets that have previously utilized AR/VR. This includes products such as Meb ...more
It looks like "going live" is another thing we all have to figure out how to do to remain relevant in this very Facebook-driven world. But why would you ever want to go live? That's really up to you. If you're a personality, an artist, entertainer, brand, business, or just a ...more
One inventor wants to bring augmented reality to internet radio and home audio speakers. Meanwhile, a leading consumer electronics company has opened up access its deep learning tools for building augmented reality apps. In addition, analysts examine how augmented reality will ...more
Not everyone digs Siri. Some of you probably can't live without the personal assistant on your iPhone, and some of you probably never even use it — and likely never will. If you fall into the latter category of iPhone users, you can simply disable the feature altogether, which ...more
In case Google Photos didn't recognize your face enough, they're now rolling out a new AI feature who uses facial recognition for easy photo sharing. The feature is available as of today, but was announced in May at the company's I/O developer conference. It involves the addi ...more
There are so many tips and tricks on how to improve your Instagram photos, but one really easy way is to use the HDR camera setting. HDR is high dynamic range imaging and takes three exposures of a photo — overexposed, underexposed, and one in the middle at the normal exposure ...more
It seems that mobile app developers are constantly coming up with new ideas to apply augmented reality, with Apple's ARKit promising to increase adoption in apps exponentially. Recently, two developers came up with some rather unique ways to apply AR to familiar mobile applic ...more
For $0.25 per transaction, PayPal will soon be allowing you to transfer money through their app that will get delivered within seconds rather than days. The plan was announced this morning, and it comes just after Apple's new Apple Pay features and big bank's move into the pe ...more
Despite packing some really nice camera specs, the OnePlus 3 and 3T don't take the best pictures. That's because, these days, great software is just as important as great hardware when it comes to image quality. Qualcomm, who made the processors for the OnePlus 3 and 3T, has ...more
One major iOS 11 improvement that Apple skimped out on during its WWDC presentation was the redesigned storage management system, which makes it easy to view storage consumption in greater detail on your iPhone — and even easier to free up storage space with surgical precision ...more
When Apple revamped the storage management system in iOS 11, it built in a feature that lets you free up space on your iPhone in a more efficient manner. The option allows you to remove an app while preserving its data and documents should you choose to reinstall it later — an ...more
At Apple's yearly event, the World Wide Developers Conference, the tech giant finally announced their decision to enter the augmented reality space. Through adding basic AR functionality to the beta release of Xcode 9, the development environment for Mac computers, as well as ...more
During the opening keynote of their Worldwide Developers Conference today in San Jose, Apple introduced the ARKit for the new iOS 11 that will bring augmented reality apps to millions of compatible iPhones and iPads. ARKit will allow developers to leverage motion tracking, su ...more
Over the past week, we are seeing more companies capitalizing on services leveraging augmented reality. One company secured funding to expand their service, while two other companies grow its own services through acquisition. Aira Raises $12 Million to Grow Visual Interpreter ...more
A Seattle development team is putting the "ARRRR" in AR with the maiden voyage of Captain Blimey, an augmented reality game for iOS and Android devices that puts a pirate premise on Pokémon GO. Instead of stalking make-believe monsters, players in Captain Blimey hunt for trea ...more
This week in Market Reality, we see two companies capitalizing on technologies that contribute to augmented reality platforms. In addition, industry mainstays Vuzix and DAQRI have business news of their own to report. Fastdata.io Raises $1.5 Million A group of investors head ...more
Your Android phone could be listening to ultrasonic ad beacons behind your back. The unwelcome news comes year after app developer SilverPush promised to quit using its (creepy!) eavesdropping software. But it looks like the privacy-threatening technology — which can track us ...more
The keynote at this week's Vision Summit 2017, a two-day event put together by the Unity team in beautiful Hollywood, California, revealed a few new features coming to the Unity platform. They also previewed some of the beta features that are currently available for those less ...more
Recent launches of YouTube TV and YouTube Go created a bit of excitement on the web. Though the latter allows downloading, it doesn't allow background playback, as that would require a YouTube Red subscription for $10 a month. However, there's still a way to get both of these ...more
Even though your phone has a built-in media player, it's got nothing on VLC. The popular third-party video player supports virtually every codec and file format, and even better, you can use it to stream movies, shows, and other video files from your computer to your phone. I ...more
Perhaps one of CyanogenMod's greatest features was its built-in theme engine. It wasn't perfect, but it got the job done and gave users a unique look. Now that CyangenMod is defunct, and the developers behind its successor, LineageOS, have confirmed they won't be continuing th ...more
Have you ever wanted to control a swarm of robots? Well, now you can! Robotics researchers at New York University (NYU) have created an app which controls 'bots from your smartphone, using augmented reality. This AR app would certainly come in handy when you want to make a cof ...more
Once upon a time, Flash games reigned as some of the best entertainment the internet had to offer. But then came the smartphone, which quickly overtook this genre with similar games that you could play no matter where you were. If you yearn for the good old days, though, you'l ...more
Final Fantasy XV, the latest release in the long-running Final Fantasy franchise, has been a massive success, shipping around 6 million copies worldwide in less than two months. Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire is a mobile game based off this popular console iteration, and has s ...more
We know your time is valuable to you, so starting this week — and continuing every Wednesday — we are going to release weekly Dev Reports that quickly highlight important news and updates that augmented and mixed reality developers should know about. The goal here is to creat ...more
Netmarble's ChronoBlade, a mobile role-playing game, has made its way to iOS and Android by way of a soft launch that will make it exclusive to users in Canada and Singapore for a couple of months. Its console-quality graphics and extra features will surely make it a hit when ...more
The latest Google Photos update for Android has added a number of cool new features, like video stabilization and a rumored Google+ integration. The latest update started rolling out to devices on April 11, 2017, and includes the video stabilizing feature we've been waiting fo ...more
The Galaxy S8 and S8+ might not have made it into the hands of the public yet, but we sure have come across a lot of the stock apps from Samsung's latest flagship phones. First, there was the new launcher, then Hello Bixby, and now, the extremely elusive Record Screen feature ...more
When Google added new security measures to Android Marshmallow, it had a lasting impact on the entire process of rooting. These measures prevent the the Superuser daemon (the process that handles requests for root access) from getting the permissions it needs to do its job at ...more
Pinterest, a worldwide catalog of ideas shared by over 175 million users every month, is dominated by Android users, who are now the app's fastest growing group. Pinterest has since taken notice, and has started to incorporate handy home screen shortcuts for users with Android ...more
The Galaxy S8 and S8+ haven't even hit shelves yet, but some of the stock apps from Samsung's latest flagships have already been leaked. The biggest one so far is the new Samsung Experience Launcher, which replaces TouchWiz Home, and is quite a bit different from anything you' ...more
We've all been hit by inopportune screen rotations at some point or another. Having the display orientation suddenly go from portrait to landscape when reading an interesting article in bed is one of the biggest irritations that come with using a smartphone (at least, for me). ...more
The first developer preview of Android Oreo 8.0 was only out for a couple of days before Chainfire created a new root method for it. For the time being, only the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P are supported by this first SuperSU ZIP, as the Pixel's dual-partition layout has created som ...more
Facebook is aware that Snapchat is killing the social media game amongst the youths, which makes sense, because in 2017, video is king in social media currency. Facebook has continually shown that Mark Zuckerberg and crew seem to think the best strategy to keep up is to simply ...more
Just days after the first Android O preview build was released, the development community had already started bringing some of the exclusive features over to older Android versions. For instance, the Pixel Launcher received an update in Android O, and developer linuxct quickly ...more
Dynasty Warriors has finally been unleashed on the world of mobile gaming. The latest installment in the popular series is called Dynasty Warriors: Unleashed, and it sends you rampaging through armies using a variety of devastating attacks, all while collecting and upgrading o ...more
The LG V20 is a true audiophile's phone when it comes to playing music through headphones, but it only has a single bottom-firing mono speaker. So even though the V20 has received plenty of praise for its overall audio experience, that single built-in speaker ruins the fun by ...more
The LG V20 went on sale on September 29, 2016, and is the second flagship phone in the V series to be released by LG. Both the V20 and its predecessor, the V10, have been audio-oriented phones from the start, but the V20 has a much nicer Hi-Fi Quad 32-Bit DAC, which makes the ...more
Early this morning, Unity held their keynote at GDC 2017 in the InterContinental San Francisco hotel. During the event, they talked about their upcoming roadmap and many changes that are coming down the pipe. This list included the lighting explorer, progressive lightmapper, t ...more
There's a lot of conflicting information out there when it comes to the best habits for charging a smartphone's battery, so let's clear some of that up right off the bat. Lithium ion batteries (the type used in most modern electronics) start to lose their ability to hold a cha ...more
If you're ever in a major accident or have a bout with acute onset health problems, first responders will need to know as much information about you in order to provide proper care. For this reason, paramedics and firemen have been trained to search a subject's cell phone to f ...more
A development team in Silicon Valley is nearing early access release of a new hardware-independent augmented reality platform called Phantom AR. Compatible with Android and iOS-based headsets, as well as the Microsoft HoloLens and Meta 2, Phantom AR runs the entire augmented ...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
The iPhone has a handy feature called AssistiveTouch that lets you quickly adjust volume, lock your screen, rotate your display, and even navigate through the phone's interface using a virtual home button. In a way, it's a lot like the on-screen navigation bar that you'll find ...more
One of the biggest things that differentiates Android from iOS is the app drawer. Instead of the operating system just tossing all of your app icons into a cluttered heap on your home screen, most can be tucked away neatly in the app drawer, which, in essence, is very similar ...more
DigiLens, a company specializing in optical waveguide technology, recently announced that they had closed a $22 million round of strategic investment, also known as Series B funding. This round brought in Sony, Foxconn, Continental, and Panasonic, as well as more traditional v ...more
In this first part of our tutorial series on making physical objects come to life on HoloLens, we are going to set up Vuforia in Unity. I would plan to keep a Vuforia tab open in your web browser throughout most of this tutorial, and when developing in general, since Vuforia ...more
The limitless applications of 3D data visualization will enable a more efficient approach to many of life's problems. Each day, developers exploring this technology are finding new ways to solve these problems in mixed reality; 3D modeling, easier house management, spinal surg ...more
In this episode of Have You Seen This?, we will look at Oriental Museum by 247 Technology Limited, a free application in the Windows Store for HoloLens. Museum exhibits seem to be a popular theme amongst the demonstrations going up, so let's see how this one looks. Oriental M ...more
The brand new Pixel and Pixel XL, Google's first direct attempts at taking on the iPhone, haven't rolled out exactly how Google would have liked. The devices have already had more than their fair share of issues, starting with the camera, and now extending to the built-in spea ...more
If you're an Android user, Google probably has almost your entire digital life stored on its servers. Family pictures are backed up on Google Photos, your e-book library resides with Google Play Books, videos are on YouTube, chat logs in Gmail and Hangouts, starred places and ...more
There's no question about it—Skype is one useful program, but has always been lacking in the mobile department. On your desktop, Skype works just fine and all of its options are available for usage. However, the same cannot be said for Android. On Android, you can't even chang ...more
Now that Android 7.1.1 has been released, several features that were previously exclusive to Google's new Pixel phones are now available on the Nexus 6P. However, Google seems to be holding back on the Pixel's best features, as things like the "Night Light" red screen filter, ...more
Most websites prevent you from saving embedded videos, but if you have the Xposed Framework installed on your Android device, a cool module from developer Ashish Bansal will now let you download almost any video. The way it works is simple—just start playing a video in your fa ...more
There's one thing that I've always liked about iPhones, and that's their centered digital clock in the status bar at the top of the screen. On Android, it's always on the right side by default, and there's no easy setting that lets you just change it to the center position. Bu ...more
Selecting text on a touchscreen device has always been a major pain point. Those tiny little arrows that let you adjust the selection area are always too hard to actually adjust, making precision all but impossible. Then there's the issue of some apps not even allowing text se ...more
Don't let the lack of owning a HoloLens stop you from joining in on the fun of creating software in this exciting new space. The HoloLens Emulator offers a solution for everyone that wants to explore Windows Holographic development. At $3,000, the HoloLens can be cost-prohibi ...more
Copying files from a computer to your Android device has always been pretty straightforward—just connect the two devices with a USB cable, open your desktop file explorer, then move the files over. But what if you didn't need any wires at all? A new app from developer AppCube ...more