It's been a great year for video games, kind of. Sure, the AAA release lineup has been a trainwreck and hacking has been a bigger problem than ever. But two things have happened involving the federal government that have made video games more legitimate in the United States th ...more
Video games are the newest major expressive media. As such, their role in society is still being defined continuously. A monumentally important example of this took place yesterday at the US Supreme Court. After a long deliberation, the highest court in the land handed down a ...more
One of the creepiest musical instruments ever is undoubtedly the theremin, a device originating from the early 20s that emits eerie sounds with a just a wave of the hand. If you've seen the original movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, you know what I mean—freakishly creepy. P ...more
When stories are told about people in need, the ones with happy endings include the details of someone that produced an action that caused the people in need to be better off than before. Do we have to wait for the identification of a need? Could we on purpose just plan to pre ...more
Have you ever heard of cricket? No, we're not talking Jiminy Cricket or the wireless cell phone service provider. We're talking about CRICKET. The team sport, nicknamed "the gentleman's game," is the popular sport of choice in places like India, Australia, South Africa, Sri La ...more
In the dojo, what ISN’T said is often as important as what IS said. To most of us who’ve been raised in the USA, the reticence we encounter in the dojo can be off-putting. American society is very “content” oriented. Our legal contracts, for instance, run for pages and pages. ...more
Earlier this month, the U.S. Army agreed to drop quite a big chunk of change ($461m to be exact) on 423 M1117 Guardian Armored Security Vehicles (ASV), made by Textron Systems. What makes the M1117 worth $461m of the army's budget? Well, a Hummer isn't capable of withstandin ...more
A little over a year after emerging from stealth, augmented reality gaming startup Illumix has launched its first title using a familiar formula, but with a new twist. On Monday, the company, working in partnership with Scott Games, launched Five Nights at Freddy's AR Special ...more
After achieving viral and financial success with its Gender Swap and Baby Face camera filters, Snapchat has returned with the augmented reality equivalent of Benjamin Button. On Thursday, the app added the Time Machine Lens to the carousel so that users can see what they will ...more
Apple first added the "Do Not Track" option to Safari in iOS 7, which sent a request to site owners and advertisers to not track your browsing activity. By tracking your activity, those third-parties could tailor content to you that you're more likely to interact with. While t ...more
In the business world, it's sometimes said that "where there's smoke, there's fire." At Snapchat parent company Snap, Inc., it appears the equivalent of smoke is executive turnover. The latest in a string of executive exits comes via chief financial officer Tim Stone, the for ...more
The Pixel 3 has an indisputably great camera, but a software update coming soon is going to make it even better. Google will be adding a "Night Sight" shooting mode that's so good with low-light situations that you'll have to see it to believe it. XDA highlighted a port of th ...more
Epic Games just released update v3.4 for Fortnite Battle Royale on all four platforms. This new version brings a number of UI changes, performance improvements, and bug fixes, but the addition that will get the most players excited is a new weapon: the Guided Missile. The Gui ...more
In just a few months, Binance has experienced explosive growth, overtaking its rivals to rank among the top three cryptocurrency exchanges in the world by trading volume. Without a doubt, Binance is now among the best sites for trading alt-coins like Ripple (XRP), Stellar (XLM ...more
If DroneBase's new AR platform inspires even half the creativity among its users as Minecraft did with its community, then drone pilots are about to enjoy acres of blocky worlds to explore among the clouds. That new platform is called AirCraft, and it's available as a beta fe ...more
It was a good weekend for OnePlus 5T rumors — it looks likely the 5T will be first appearing in New York, and we got a spec leak that supports the rumors we've already heard. However, perhaps the best 5T news came from OnePlus' CEO himself: The OnePlus 5T may cost $600 or less ...more
It's not rare to see an advertisement in tech directly call out the competition. Whether it's the famous Mac vs. PC ads from back in the day or the Pixel burning the iPhone 7's lack of a headphone jack, rivalries in these commercials are certainly commonplace. Samsung's new ad ...more
Clumsiness is the great equalizer when it comes to smartphones — it makes no distinction between the most expensive flagship handset and cheaper mid-range models. A hard drop onto pavement will usually result in a shattered screen, regardless of how pricey your device is. And ...more
A top executive from Baidu's telematics division believes the company will become the word leader in driverless by 2020, according to a report in today's South China Morning Post. Citing Xu Yongming, the general manager of Baidu's telematics division as the source, Baidu exec ...more
Smartglass maker ThirdEye Gen, Inc. has introduced an augmented reality solution for enterprises that includes their X1 Smartglass and a suite of software applications that enable completely hands-free computing. The market for enterprise augmented reality solutions is alread ...more
Apple has sprung a massive AR following since the announcement of their ARKit, with users waiting to see what exactly the tech giant will do next. Now, thanks to a patent application published today, we might have an idea of what's coming: augmented reality glasses. The rumo ...more
The Chinese government's tight restrictions on gathering data by foreign firms for 3D mapping, the lifeblood of machine-taught driverless systems, could at least slow down access to the market by Waymo, Tesla, General Motors (GM), Ford, and other players hoping to make inroads ...more
Volunteer project Standard Ebooks strives to enhance some of the work available from Project Gutenberg and other public domain text sources, making them easier on the eyes. Standard Ebooks so far gave 100 titles a makeover, adding covers, "lightly modernizing" them, and desig ...more
Vuzix Corporation has lifted the preorder status on its M300 Smart Glasses, making the augmented reality device available for purchase by resellers, registered developers, enterprises, and consumers. The M300 is targeted for business use-cases, particularly industrial, constr ...more
From Instagram bot farms in China all the way to vending machines in Moscow that promise to sell you fake followers — the Facebook-owned empire is attracting the attention of the world around. When it comes to Russia especially, the country seems to be developing a little crus ...more
Many recipes call for self-rising flour as a staple ingredient. Oftentimes, we find ourselves passing these recipes by because we don't have it on hand, or because we don't use it enough to actually want to buy it. Don't Miss: Cook Like a Chef: Use Ratios, Not Recipes Lucki ...more
In many programs on Linux, you'll come across programs which allow you to specify additional arguments instead of just simply running the program by itself. If you've used the Kali distribution, I'm more than certain you'll have come across these with the command line tools, e ...more
Ruby is a dynamic, general-purpose programming language created by Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto in Japan around the mid-90's. It has many uses but with it's flexibility, it makes a great language to write exploits in. In fact, the entire Metasploit Framework is written in Ruby! T ...more
With all due respect to the fine folks at DrinkTanks, it's a little surprising that no one came up with their idea sooner. After all, last I checked, beer was pretty darned popular. Still, the company has come up with the ultimate toy for beer drinkers. (Santa, I've been good ...more
I love my MacBook Air, but the fact that it runs on only 128 GB of flash storage causes me to move most of my files to the cloud. I don't mind having to be connected to the internet in order to access my files, but it's definitely a hassle trying to figure out which files I sh ...more
Rooting an Android device used to be a nightmarish labyrinth of .zip files and command prompts, confusing seasoned modding veterans and newbies alike. Thankfully, the process has gotten simpler over the years, with various "one-click" rooting tool kits surfacing and working fo ...more
While browsing the internet on your Samsung Galaxy S4, you've probably scrolled to the bottom of a very long webpage, Twitter feed, or down into the abyss of some other app. Depending just how far down you've scrolled, it can be a test of your patience (and fingertips) scrolli ...more
Anyone who uses a computer on a regular basis probably knows how to access the task manager to check system resources and usage stats. However, on a Samsung Galaxy S3 or other Android device, it may not be so obvious. There's no equivalent to Control-Alt-Delete, but it's still ...more
We share links on an almost daily basis, usually not even thinking twice about it. Whether you're sending a funny cat video to your sister, or letting your coworker know where to go to download relevant files, there are plenty of reasons you might be giving someone a URL. But ...more
Watch this first 'tutorial'.FauxTo! Hoax! Con! May 28, 2008, this video was uploaded to YouTube illustrating the popcorn popping power of a circle of ringing mobile phones. Radiation. Amazing. Viral. Millions viewed. Back in 2006, BoingBoing, Diggers, and others had fallen fo ...more
If you've been wondering why you're so unlucky, maybe it's because you haven't been following the New Year's Day tradition like everyone else in the world. So, if you want your luck to change in 2011, you better grab the black-eyed peas and make some Hoppin' John! Now, Hoppin ...more
If Null Byte had a large Batman-like spotlight calling for help, we would definitely be using it right now. However, we don't, so this is my digital equivalent. Information security is a huge field, far too much for one man to cover adequately, so I need your help! Do you cod ...more
Could Nigeria add SCRABBLE to the list of games at their National Sports Festival in 2011? No one knows for sure, but it's definitely a possibility since SCRABBLE was among the competitions of the biennial 10-day sports fiesta in the past. In 2009, at the 16th Nigerian Nationa ...more
When I trained at Honbu I used to keep one of the towels reserved for cleaning the floor at the end of class close by me so that I could sop up the sweat that gathered in puddles on the floor beneath me during wazapractice. During one such class, I took advantage of a momentar ...more
OnePlus releases some unique and exciting features before they start catching on with everyone else. Their OxygenOS is often considered the cleanest and most useful variant of Android. However, there are still a few key features OnePlus has yet to bring to their devices. This ...more
Apple has their regular iPhone 11, then two higher-end "Pro" models. Samsung went the other way — they have the Galaxy S20 and S20+, then there's the S20 Ultra. But one thing these smartphone lines do have in common is the base model flagship. How do they compare? Where the i ...more
Smartglasses maker Vuzix has emerged with the first hardware powered by the Snapdragon XR1 chip, roughly nine months after Qualcomm introduced the chipset designed to drive augmented reality wearables at the Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara. On Monday, at the Mobile World ...more
Mobile augmented reality pioneer Blippar has now completed its fall from hopeful AR startup to the immersive computing history books. On Monday, Blippar confirmed via a blog post that it has entered administration, the UK equivalent of bankruptcy in the US. The announcement c ...more
So far, consumer augmented reality headsets haven't found mainstream success. That's primarily because no manufacturer has managed to hit the sweet spot between slim form factor, performance, and affordability. So when you hear that a Norwegian company called Ludenso is offer ...more
Project Fi, Google's MVNO, is running a new promotion on the latest and greatest from LG. From July 16 until the 29th, whenever you order and activate the LG G7 ThinQ or LG V35 ThinQ, you will receive a $300 service credit. When you do the numbers, that equals a minimum of thr ...more
Marvel has solidified itself as the dominant superhero franchise with the release of Avengers: Infinity War, and it's now dipping its toes into the world of mobile card-based strategy games with the soft launch of Marvel Battle Lines in select countries ahead of a worldwide re ...more
A few months ago, we gave you a small peek at a new entrant in the race to deliver augmented reality smartglasses to the masses, and now the device is finally ready for the public. ThirdEye Gen is now accepting preorders for its X1 Smart Glasses, which will also provide users ...more
Augmented reality headsets with larger eye boxes than any device currently available could make their way to market by the end of next year if current timelines hold true. These devices are made possible by WaveOptics, whose full-color waveguide displays are capable of a 40-d ...more
According to Digi-Capital, investors poured $1.8 billion into augmented and virtual reality companies over the last 12 months, including $300 million in the third quarter. These investments are not made without a means to monetize products and services. One way AR/VR earns re ...more
Back in 2009, largely due to the sheer number of users demanding it, Spotify added an amazing little feature — the ability to disable volume normalization. While the feature is nothing more than a toggle on the visual front, the audible difference is far superior and moons apa ...more
At the end of June, Unity 2017.1, the newest version of the popular 3D development engine, went live. And with that release, it brought out some very cool new features like Timeline and Cinemachine, to name a few. Now, for those of us that develop with Unity and follow the bet ...more
China's Baidu, the Chinese equivalent of Google, live streamed a video yesterday of CEO Robin Li riding a self-drive vehicle along the streets and highways of Beijing. Since it's illegal to even test driverless cars on public roads and streets in China, the stunt culminated i ...more
Anchor has been called the audio equivalent of Snapchat. The app lets you record audio and broadcast it to whomever you follow. If you haven't heard of the app, get familiar with it because it has announced an easy way for you to record and publish podcasts from your smartphon ...more
As the world goes into a frenzy over the latest strain of WannaCry ransomware, it might be a good time to remember to update all your devices. Yes, those little reminders your phone and computer throw at you every now and then to update your junk can be really annoying, but no ...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
In the Western world, the only time you'd associate food with cockroaches is health code violations. And while other cultures and countries are more open to cooking with and eating these and other little buggers, insects are probably not a food trend that will be adopted by th ...more
Hello you sexy, savage, surreptitiously tech-savvy penetrators (Pun intended)! Today I'm going to show you two really quick tricks that allows you to find someones saved passwords on their browser. To use these tricks you must have access to their browser, which means you are ...more
Losing important data is the modern-day equivalent of misplacing your wallet or keys. We have tons of vital information stored in our digital worlds, and losing any of it can be devastating. But if you've accidentally deleted something important from your Android device, there ...more
Due to its constant delays and lack of public invites, the OnePlus One is the equivalent of a unicorn in the Android community. I was lucky enough to win an invite in the OnePlus Storm of Invites promotion and have loved every minute with my new Nexus Killer since receiving it ...more
After much speculating, denying, and waiting, Microsoft has finally released their suite of Offices apps dedicated to the iPad. With increased competition and flocks of users going to apps like Quickoffice (which was recently acquired by Google) and Kingsoft Office, it was get ...more