Apple's Wallet app lets you store boarding passes, concert tickets, gym memberships, vaccination cards, movie stubs, rewards cards, insurance info, student IDs, and more in one place on your iPhone, and you just double-click the Home or Side button to access them. Unfortunatel ...more
Google's new Material You theming engine in Android 12 adds a personal touch to your user interface. The main colors of your wallpaper dynamically affect the colors in menus and apps, essentially putting you in control of the overall theme. But there's another new design eleme ...more
Snapchat parent company Snap has opened up its war chest to acquire yet another company that will play a role in its augmented reality ecosystem. This week, Snap confirmed its acquisition of Vertebrae, an AR and 3D e-commerce startup with offices in Los Angeles and Austin, fo ...more
The Metaverse, or AR cloud, has been a sci-fi dream for decades, but only recently have companies begun to actually develop the technology to build it. With its latest funding round, Epic Games is suddenly a front-runner in this pursuit. Likewise, smartglasses are another of ...more
Next to spam calls, few things are more annoying than being inundated with spam, scam, and smishing texts. Your iPhone's Messages app should be a place for your friends and family to stay in touch, not a minefield of phishing attacks, malicious links, and viruses. Luckily, the ...more
What is old is new again. In this case, a classic arcade game gets the augmented reality treatment. In a new promotion playing off its ad campaign featuring actor Craig Robinson (The Office, Hot Tub Time Machine), Pizza Hut has turned its pizza boxes into a virtual Pac-Man ga ...more
We use our smartphones every single day. They're a part of our daily routine, and as a result, we've gotten really good at using them — especially when it comes to typing very quickly. But just how fast can you type on your iPhone? Can you match your speed on a physical keyboa ...more
To assist developers and researchers in their efforts to create apps and services for automobiles, Volvo Cars has launched a new Innovation Portal with useful new tools and assets. Among the free resources featured on the Innovation Portal is a high-quality 3D model of the Vo ...more
With iOS 14, Apple finally lets us change the default browser on our iPhones. No longer do we need to settle for Safari if we'd prefer another option like Chrome or Firefox. However, we encourage you to consider switching your browser or your search engine — or both — to Ecosi ...more
I won't mince words: the Notes widget in iOS 14 is bad. But you're not stuck with it if you want sticky notes on your home screen. Although I enjoy iOS 14's updated widgets overall, its Notes implementation was poorly thought out. I was hoping for a large sticky note on my ho ...more
Your phone tracks your every move to some extent, and I'm not just talking about Google services. Smartphone manufacturers use telemetry services that run in the background to track how you use the device, mostly for ads or to improve their future products. You don't usually h ...more
When compared to last year's model, the Pixel 4a has upgrades that go beyond the spec sheet. But since it's one generation old, 2019's Pixel 3a can be had for one hell of a discount right now, and it's still got two full years of software updates coming its way. So which one r ...more
This extended period at home due to COVID-19 is the perfect time to try out new apps in the Play Store. But instead of buying premium versions, Google Play Pass will give you unlimited access to paid apps and games for about five bucks. And there's an even better deal now to h ...more
Smartphones are vital travel companions. While you're on the go, they connect you with loved ones back home, help you find tickets and passes for tourist attractions, and make it easy to find your way through foreign roads — but even the most powerful smartphone could use help ...more
Smartphone gaming continues to improve with ever sharper displays and raw processing power to deliver console-quality graphics right in the palm of your hands. Nonetheless, you still stand to improve the gaming experience on any phone by adding the right accessories to the mix ...more
You're a busy, on-the-go professional, so you deserve an email client that keeps up with you. "Mail" on iPhone wasn't always the best option, but thanks to iOS 13, it feels like a completely different app. That said, there are plenty of alternatives that offer a different expe ...more
There are many reasons you might want to increase your text size in Google Chrome. The browser's accessibility options have a few tools to help the readability of text on websites. Changing the text scale, enabling zooming, and toggling the simplified view can customize Google ...more
Your phone's keyboard is one of the most commonly used apps. Whether you're typing out status updates, sending private messages, or just bombarding everyone in sight with as many emoji as you possibly can, you probably couldn't get by without a good keyboard app. Since Androi ...more
The new film Brightburn, a horror take on the superhero genre produced by Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn, debuted in theaters on Friday, and it has some promotional backing from Snapchat to drive ticket sales. Available via Snapcode, the augmented reality experie ...more
Need a unique gift idea for the techy person in your life? Look no further than that phone they always have in their hand. There are plenty of great accessories, apps, subscriptions, and other smartphone-related goodies that will improve their quality of life, and thoughtful g ...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
If you want the ability to play YouTube videos in the background as you multitask on your iPhone, you'll have to shell out $11.99 a month for the privilege of doing so with YouTube Premium. Not all of us can afford nor justify such an expense, but if your iPhone is jailbroken, ...more
HBO is only a couple of episodes into the second season of Westworld, the television version of the classic science fiction movie about a robot resort gone awry, and the fan theories about the show are already reaching Season 1 levels of weirdness. But while you were obsessed ...more
Amazon has had a long-standing partnership with its consumers regarding special offers. Amazon sells these Prime Exclusive Phones with lock screen ads and Amazon apps in exchange for discounts on the phones. You also need to be an Amazon Prime Member, leading us to historicall ...more
After pouring out $10 million for 60 seconds of Super Bowl advertising time, Doritos and Mountain Dew continued their Sunday marketing binge on Snapchat. For their spot during the game, Doritos and Mountain Dew staged a lip-synched rap battle between highly meme-able actors P ...more
A PirateBox creates a network that allows users to communicate wirelessly, connecting smartphones and laptops even when surrounding infrastructure has been disabled on purpose or destroyed in a disaster. Using a Raspberry Pi, we will make a wireless offline server that hosts f ...more
Firefox Focus is Mozilla's effort to make your internet experience a little more secure. Originally released in November 2016 for iOS, Focus blocks internet trackers, search history, anything that gets in the way of a clean, private browsing experience. iPhone users were the ...more
Apple announced upcoming changes today to prevent third-party tracking of users and prevent autoplay, on Safari. Safari will prevent the recording (by anyone other than Apple) of users' browsing behavior, and by doing so prevent advertisers from targeting ads based on individu ...more
All you paying Spotify users are about to get another exclusive privilege besides getting out of all those annoying "Ever wonder what it would be like to have Spotify premium?" ads. The Sweden-based company is looking to lower the royalty fees they have to pay to major record ...more
It just got a whole lot easier to decide whether or not saving $50 on Amazon's new ad- and bloatware-subsidized smartphones is worth the headache of having to see an advertisement on the lock screen every time you wake the device. That's because you can get rid of the lock sc ...more
Google is reportedly working on an iOS keyboard that brings key features to the iPhone, including Google's image and text search functions. (GIFs, yay!) According to The Verge, the keyboard has been in development and testing for months, and will act much like the Android vers ...more
Get ready for a blast from the past. Atari announced that it will releasing Atari Vault, a collection of 100 quintessential Atari games, sometime this Spring. The compilation will be available to download on Steam, and includes fan-favorite games such as Asteroids, Centipede, ...more
Although they're often times the primary source of income for websites, on-site advertisements can annoy even the most tolerable reader. That's why ad blockers have been some of the most popular downloads on Firefox and Chrome for some time now, demonstrating that when it come ...more
It's no secret that Google stores your search history in order to provide you with targeted ads when surfing the web. What's even more interesting (or freaky) is that your Google Now voice searches are also being stored, and you can actually listen to them right now. Don't Mi ...more
Incredibly tiny in size, splinters can be frustratingly difficult to remove from your skin. If large and not completely embedded, a splinter can usually be extracted using tweezers, tape, or glue, but if it's small and in there pretty good, you'll have to get more creative. O ...more
We previously showed you how to make your Android's LED notification light dance to music, but the app itself was limited in customization options, the devices it worked on, and the music apps and services it worked with. Now we'll be showing you a similar app that supports mo ...more
Windows 8 may have introduced a new, intuitive touch-based interface, but plenty of Microsoft loyalists were unhappy with the absence of the classic start menu that they were so accustomed to. Although you'll have to wait until Windows 10 to get this feature back, you can hav ...more
When it comes to subscription-based music streaming services, the conversation doesn't go much further than Spotify and Google Play Music (previously called "All Access"). Both services are essentially the same aside from slightly different catalogues and social options, and t ...more
Google makes backing up your contacts, messages, and Wi-Fi passwords extremely easy, but leaves you out in the cold when it comes the data on your internal storage. With most Android devices now lacking SD card support, when you unlock your bootloader or do a factory reset, yo ...more
Google's Chromecast streaming device is a marvel of functionality and form. Even with powerful features such as screen mirroring and collaborative party playlists, it's the device's idle screen that first catches the eyes of most folks. Breathtaking photos of nature and citys ...more
Keeping data private is vital in the days of smartphones and the free-floating information they carry. Justin wrote a guide on many of the deeply hidden and sometimes concerning privacy settings in iOS 7. Now we're back to cover some of the new (and old) privacy settings in iO ...more
Summer is here, and with the season comes more freedom and searing heat. It's the ultimate between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place situation. You want to be outside and enjoy the sun, but you don't want to be over-powered by it. Thankfully, you can create makeshift misters on the chea ...more
Samsung is helping photographers in getting more utility out of their cameras with their new Samsung Smart Camera App. With it, your device becomes a powerful viewfinder for your Samsung camera, allowing you to not only frame shots, but control multiple aspects of the camera, ...more
You suck at karaoke. Most of us do, but that doesn't stop any of us from hitting up the karaoke bar. It's not about who sounds best; there's American Idol for that. It's about having a great time without incurring negative judgement; the worse you are the better time I'm havin ...more
According to a recent survey conducted by Edison Research and Statista, Pandora still has a firm grasp as the most popular music streaming service in the United States. With iHeartRadio, iTunes Radio, and even Spotify trailing behind by a large margin, it doesn't look like Pan ...more
There has been a lot of news over the last couple weeks about the popular Flappy Birds mobile game and its creator, Dong Nguyen. After becoming the hottest game on Android and iOS devices, Nguyen revealed to The Verge that he was making about $50,000 a day in advertising reve ...more
There is only one time every year where I will willingly watch advertisements—during the Super Bowl. Maybe a Victoria's Secret commercial every now and then, too, but that's about it. So, when I'm on YouTube trying to watch a two-year-old skateboard, the last thing I want to ...more
Apple computers have long been maligned as the computer for Starbucks aficionados and graphic artists. "Dude, have you used Excel on a Mac? It's terrible," says everyone that owns a Dell. The whole PC versus Mac battle was encapsulated in what I think to be the greatest ad cam ...more
While ads certainly pay the bills (thank you guys, we love you), they can also be obtrusive and annoying when it comes to accessing and viewing content (not our advertisers though, they rule). YouTube, which is fist-full of advertisements, rakes in billions of dollars a year ...more
While making the transition from Apple to Android may not be hard for some, there are others that miss the small features that Apple offers on the iPad and iPhone. If you just got a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 or other Android device and want a familiar piece of Apple on your device ...more
I like being fast at everything (well, almost everything), and I expect no less from my smartphone. So when I'm using an app on my Samsung Galaxy S3 that takes up the full display, I don't want to swipe down twice to get to my notifications—I want to swipe down once. The Slow ...more
Sharing just got a whole lot easier in the new iOS 7. Apple has decided to integrate AirDrop, the local vicinity file-sharing service found in Mac OS X, into the latest version of iOS. With AirDrop, you can share pictures, contacts, notes, and more between two iPhones without ...more
With the Xperia Z release for most major U.S. carriers expected sometime very shortly, many are both excited and curious at Sony's new flagship device. Much of the hype surrounding the new smartphone has stemmed from several ads that Sony has released, touting their waterproof ...more
This is a very fun and happy cat nail design that I wanted to show how to create through the following nail art video : Video: . Ad it can be very easily seen, the nail on the ring finger and thumb has the main design. Other nails have black and white polka dots. This makes t ...more
I love YouTube for listening to music I don't already have on my phone or in my iTunes library, but there is one very simple thing that you think they would've figured out by now—the ability to have your video continue to play outside of the app! While I understand the point ...more
The time is near—Messenger will finally kick the bucket come March 15th. So, if you're still using Windows Live Messenger for all of your IMing needs, it's time to finally make the move over to Skype, which Microsoft bought back in 2011 for a cool $8.5 billion. If you've been ...more
With the Samsung Galaxy S III being a hot commodity, it's no surprise that your friends might try unlocking your fancy password-protected phone. While some friends have good intentions when using your phone, there are those certain friends who get into the phone to do this... ...more
Browser extensions help us do all sorts of things, and there's one for just about everything, but like anything else, they can be easy to get carried away with. If you use a lot of add-ons, your browser is probably running some of them in the background on sites that don't act ...more
In these times of social distancing, video calling is becoming the technological substitute for face-to-face connections. For those who carry an iPhone, the art of video calling defaults to FaceTime, the native app on iOS that is exclusive to Apple devices. But what do you do ...more
Screen mirroring software has been around for ages, allowing you to mirror your iPhone to a projector, laptop, TV, or another device. It's useful to have during lectures, presentations, and meetings, so it's no wonder why Apple created its AirPlay technology. However, AirPlay ...more