When it works, Android's Smart Lock feature is incredible. There's no need to enter your PIN when your phone "knows" it's in your hands — just unlock and go. But Smart Lock, particularly its Trusted Places feature, can be finicky sometimes. Most of Smart Lock's features are r ...more
Speakers today are a marvel for their portability and sound quality. No longer do we need giant boxes to bring down the house — a speaker that can fit in your hand can fill a room with your favorite music. This is even more important when you pair it with your smartphone, and ...more
If you have encountered bed bugs lately, you are not alone. While the pesticides used to fight these pests are losing effectiveness, a fungus shows promise in knocking the bugs out of beds everywhere. Bed bugs, or Cimex lectularius, are parasitic arthropods, part of a broad g ...more
With iOS 13 and Android 10 adding built-in dark modes, app developers are working tirelessly to make their apps match the rest of your phone. Several are ahead of the curve, such as IMDb, who already offers a dark theme in their app. However, unlike other apps, the default th ...more
In just a few weeks, on May 29, the annual AWE (Augmented World Expo) conference will take place once again in Silicon Valley (Santa Clara, California, to be exact). And while everyone will be on the lookout for the next big thing in augmented reality coming from major player ...more
The hype around augmented reality has risen to a fever pitch over the past two years, and if this week's selection of business news stories are any indication, the din is about to get down right deafening. That's because the Microsoft's follow-up to the original HoloLens is a ...more
Despite the relatively small size of Magic Leap's first annual L.E.A.P. conference, there was a lot to see and experience. Apparently missed by many was one of the best experiences I had at the event: Wingnut AR's unreleased Pest Control game. For those of us who hate bugs, t ...more
It wasn't Christmas, but for Amazon Prime members, it was darn close: Amazon Prime Day, one of the biggest shopping days of the year, came and went earlier this week. Unfortunately, there weren't many Prime Day-specific deals to be had for augmented reality fans, but that does ...more
If touring the scenic vistas behind the Lord of the Rings film franchise doesn't persuade tourists to visit New Zealand, perhaps immersive content viewed through Magic Leap One will do the trick. On Thursday, Air New Zealand announced a strategic partnership with Magic Leap, ...more
Friendship has always been a staple of Animal Crossing games, and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp makes no exceptions. Check out this guide if you're interested in how to maximize time with your furry friends. While building friendships has always been at the core of Animal Cros ...more
Ever since the Google Play Store removed its "Designed for tablets" section, it's been a lot harder to find good, tablet-optimized Android apps. Not that it was all that great to begin with considering that they used to list apps like Facebook and Twitter, which only have over ...more
Newer gaming systems like the PlayStation 4 have a nice, subtle feature that goes a long way towards helping create a more immersive experience. Any time you're on the main menu or home screen, an ambient background music track is playing, which adds an aural appeal to an expe ...more
Returning your device to stock, whether it is because you need to sell it or just want to receive OTAs again, is not always a simple process. Since HTC has released countless variations of both the M7 and M8 HTC One, it can be a pain in the ass finding the right files and tool ...more
For those who have never traveled abroad, you may not know that different carriers around the world use different bands of frequency to provide service to their customers. This means that a phone bought in the U.S. may be unable to acquire signal from a carrier in Europe. Up ...more
Purchasing an actual book from a brick-and-mortar store is becoming increasingly less common for people to do, but it hasn't completely gone out of style just yet. There's something about entering a bookstore and viewing all the potential great stories and epic tales just sitt ...more
When you've gotta go, you've gotta go. No matter how hard you try and hold your pee (or the dreaded number two), it's going to find a way to leave your body one way or another. That's why it's always good to know where all of the nearest bathrooms are at all times, no matter w ...more
While change is good, it isn't always welcomed. All software updates with radical redesigns and brand-new features bring at least a few complaints from those accustomed to previous versions. iOS 7 got a lot of flak from iOS 6 users, as did iOS 8 from iOS 7 users. When it come ...more
First of all I am glad that I was able to find this website and become part of it. So far I love it. Recently Playstation created a competition where a person has to show how online gaming is good. Pretty simple right? You can enter with an image or a video, however I do not t ...more
If you're the type of person who constantly uses multiple tabs in your browser, you know how annoying it is when one of them starts playing unwanted music or video. If you have a ton of tabs open, it can be next to impossible to figure out which one the sound is coming from—e ...more
If you've got a Samsung Galaxy S3 or Galaxy Note 2, you probably either love or hate the Social Tag feature. Using facial recognition, much like Facebook does, it scans your photos and lets you tag a name to a face. If your device recognizes the face by itself, it will automat ...more
Having thousands of photos and videos in your Photos gallery can make it difficult to find the best ones, but your iPhone does make it a bit easier. Memories, which have been around since iOS 10, automatically group your photos and videos into mini-movies by location, date, or ...more
Apple removed the Wish List feature from the App Store when iOS 11 was released, which was a huge disappointment, to say the least. While the Wish List still remains in the iTunes Store, it seems gone for good for apps, but that doesn't mean you can't still keep a wish list of ...more
One of Android's most glaring weaknesses is its lack of an iMessage equivalent. That is, of course, until now. There's one app that will allow Android users to experience iMessage on their non-Apple phone, complete with end-to-end encryption, message effects, and group messagi ...more
For almost a decade, projector phones have tried to entice consumers with their convenience as media machines. While these devices are alluring, they've never really taken off with mainstream success. The latest effort, Moviphone, sounds tempting if you watch a lot of films an ...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
When alcohol tastes bad, there's little you can do to save it—or so you think. While it might seem easier to toss your entire bottle of old, opened wine, or to give up and drink crappy vodka anyway, there are creative ways to turn a spoiled or just plain bad boozy beverage int ...more
One of the most aggravating things that can happen on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media apps is when a friend shares an exciting story, and a paywall prevents you from reading any of it. You could pay for a subscription to unlock it, but there are so many news sites th ...more
Uber as a service is great, but using it requires you to hand over your location data to the company. What's worse is that you may be giving them precious access to your GPS even when don't have the Uber app open. This is both a major privacy issue and a drain on your battery. ...more
We may not know what Magic Leap's product looks like. And we haven't received even a "save the date" for its launch. But we know that it will display mixed reality comics from Madefire when whatever it is arrives. Announced as part of the Future of Comics in New Realities pan ...more
As technology continues to advance, we as consumers are privileged enough to be able to take higher quality photos and videos and listen to clearer and better-sounding music on our mobile devices. But sometimes we forget that there's a price to pay for that awesome content—eno ...more
We use our smart devices for pretty much everything these days, from getting directions to playing games just to kill time. They're extremely important to our daily routine, and as we use our devices more and more, things get a little bit messy. Having tons of apps, contacts, ...more
In places like underground bars or national parks, your phone's Internet service is sure to slow down to a very sluggish pace, making it difficult to surf the web. Or worst case, data will be non-existent, leaving you with only low-level network support for calls and SMS text ...more
The most anticipated of the Android Wear devices—the Mote 360—was not only officially unveiled, it's also available to buy right now, for the low price of $249.99. Let's get this out of the way right now—you're not going to find a better looking Android Wear device anytime so ...more
Normally, it's good to automatically update your apps to the latest version, but sometimes those updates take away features that you've grown to love. Google Maps used to track your bus route and alert you to whenever your stop was approaching, but not anymore. Every Snapchat ...more
Videos are great for catching fleeting moments, and photos are insanely easy to share with anyone, but how can you get the best of both worlds? Apple includes an easy way to take snapshots while you're in the middle of recording video, but that's just too much work for me. I' ...more
There's been a lot in the news lately about tracking devices, and it's been pretty much all bad. They can be useful if your car gets stolen, but if you weren't the person who installed it, chances are you don't want it there. Just type "GPS tracking device" into Google and on ...more
Are you trigger happy with a specific emoji with a particular friend? Do you like flinging emoji poo at a buddy who keeps acting sh*tty? We have good news. In the Facebook Lite Chat app, you can now set a specific quick access emoji for easy emoji spamming. When talking to fr ...more
So, you undid something you typed on your iPhone. Maybe you used the new gesture in iOS 13 to do so. Maybe you shook your iPhone, on purpose or accidentally, to trigger the traditional undo method. Either way, you want your text back, or to redo your edit, and you aren't sure ...more
Hollywood loves to use New York City's Times Square as a setting for major scenes in a blockbuster movie, so it's only right to use the area for a choice bit of virtual apocalypse in augmented reality. A new billboard in the famously tourist-clogged area is the framework for ...more
It looks like Snapchat is becoming the MTV of augmented reality. On Thursday, Ariana Grande, with her new album Sweetner, joined Drake and Nicki Minaj and other artists who are pushing new releases through Snapchat's Shoppable AR e-commerce platform. Available in the Snapcha ...more
The Android world exploded when it was discovered that Facebook was logging the call and text histories of many of its users, although the company claims those users had explicitly given Facebook permission to log that data. The case remains that many users were unaware of thi ...more
Why would Magic Leap, a company preparing to launch its first augmented reality headset this year, need a developer for iPhone and iPad apps? It's not as crazy as it sounds. The company has published a job listing for a senior iOS application developer to "help create the fut ...more
As we aim for a wireless world, technology's reliance on cloud computing services is becoming more apparent every day. As 5G begins rolling out later this year and network communications become even faster and more reliable, so grows our dependency on the services offered in t ...more
On Monday, German newspaper and digital publisher Axel Springer announced its role as the latest company to invest in Magic Leap. This is just the latest in a series of investments the augmented reality company has garnered from the likes of Google, Qualcomm, Alibaba, Legendar ...more
Speakers have been an integral part of smartphones since the beginning. Razer's concept Project Linda even uses the speakers from the Razer Phone to power the faux laptop's audio system. But what if Google's next Pixel phone didn't even have speakers? What if it didn't need th ...more
When we think of augmented reality, we usually think of it as adding things to our reality. A new demo has shown that using Apple's ARKit, we can not only add to reality but subtract from reality as well. The demo was posted by Laan Labs who just yesterday created a demo that ...more
The nice part about creating a song playlist is that it's essentially like your own customized album. You can organize all your different music tastes into one large collection or separate them into each of their own genres. If you're using an app like SoundCloud, then instea ...more
Whether you're hard of hearing, watching a foreign movie, or just like reading along when you're watching a TV show or film on your smartphone, Netflix includes captions and subtitles that you can use. Best of all, if you don't like the way the default captions and subtitles l ...more
Lyme is a growing threat as we move into warmer weather in the US. Researchers have said this year could be one of the worst for this tick-borne disease, as a skyrocketing mouse population and warmer temperatures increase the risk. Knowing where this risk is highest is going ...more
Last month, Google introduced the Family Link app. This app, much needed in a world where the average age of kids first getting a smartphone is just over 10 years old, allows parents to set some limits on their children's phone usage. However, the app premiered with one caveat ...more
Don't ignore the update sitting in your Settings app; you'd be leaving your iPhone's security vulnerable. Apple released iOS 10.3 yesterday, which, among others things, resolves a security issue in the Safari app. Most importantly, Apple has changed a few things with Safari's ...more
This year's Game Developers Conference, better known as the GDC, is underway at the Moscone Center in San Fransisco, California, and lasts until March 3, 2017. More importantly for us here at NextReality, the Virtual Reality Developers Conference (VRDC)—a new GDC sub-conferenc ...more
Android is Google's project, so of course you can see the search giant's fingerprints all over the operating system. Aside from the obvious user-facing apps, there's Google Cloud Messaging, Google Connectivity Services, and the much-maligned Google Play Services running in the ...more
People fear virtual reality will isolate us, but the right experience can prove it does the opposite. AltspaceVR is a virtual world you can utilize to chat with others around the world, but that's not all. You can also play card and board games, a game of laser tag, or a song ...more
Many websites are crowded with ads, pictures, and other irrelevant content that make it harder than necessary to read a simple article on your iPhone. In many cases, you have to zoom in just to get a better view of the text you're attempting to read—unless the webpage blocks z ...more
So you just bought a fancy new Nexus 6 complete with its gorgeous and gigantic display—now what? Unlike Samsung's TouchWiz, stock Android doesn't sport any cool split-screen features, so how do you really take advantage of all that screen real estate? A useful multitasking to ...more
With most of HTC's staff working on getting Sense updated to Android Lollipop, their piecemeal approach to individual app updates now comes to their Gallery app. The new update is available for all HTC devices running KitKat, but if you have the HTC Service Pack installed, it ...more
If you're someone who likes to customize their user experience, stock Android is a lot like a blank canvas. The firmware that comes preinstalled on Nexus devices is just Android—no manufacturer skins or carrier bloat involved. This simplicity opens up the door for many root mo ...more
Lollipop's imminent release should be cause for excitement with Google bringing out new features, a huge redesign, and under-the-hood changes. Unfortunately, the Nexus line of devices will be the first to receive the Android 5.0 update, leaving the rest of us to wait on manufa ...more
Using Facebook and Twitter as a news source can be frustrating at times, mainly because opening links will divert you away from your current application. Instead of a smooth process, you find yourself going back and forth from app to browser, over and over again. Flynx, from ...more