First Base

Sometimes it's impossible to concentrate — let alone direct your personal assistant Siri — when someone is blasting music on their phone or talking to thin air. I mean I'm loud, but not that loud. So, it's a relief to hear that this could be changing for the better. According ...more

Disney Parks are hard at work bringing the technology from a long time ago in a land far away to life for the opening of Star Wars Land parks in Anaheim and Orlando in 2019. Much of the environment, characters, and peripherals can be recreated through construction, costumes, ...more

Facebook really wants us to use Messenger. For the most part, they've succeeded; theirs is one of the most popular messaging apps right now. And with yesterday's announcement of new features, Facebook is only going to make their flagship chat application better. Well, maybe. ...more

Transmitted by a sandfly one-third the size of a mosquito, parasitic Leishmania protozoa are responsible for a flesh-destroying disease that kills an estimated 20,000 people per year. Two new studies offer understanding of how the parasite provides immunity through persistence ...more

To become a tried-and-true Pokémon master in Pokémon GO, there's an incredibly important decision that needs your attention: Team Instinct, Team Mystic, or Team Valor? We know—it's a tough choice to make, especially when you can't change teams without creating an entirely new ...more

When it comes to customization, you just can't beat Android. Not only can you replace your home screen, switch your default apps, and apply icon packs, but you can even replace your entire lock screen by installing a simple app. Considering that the lock screen is the first in ...more

We had some friends over for a barbecue a few weeks back. Among other items, this outdoor soirée featured an epic potato salad (bacon, basil, crushed potato chips, pickles—the whole nine yards). And, like many potato salads, ours was made with a hearty amount of mayonnaise. B ...more

If you're a frequent baker like myself, you've probably realized that one box of cake mix makes quite a bit of cake. If your goal is to make a simple Bundt or an easy dozen cupcakes, all you really need is half the box mix—which leaves the other half for another baking occasio ...more

We've all been there before. Preheated the oven, popped in the cake, and then became distracted by this, that, or the other... until we either smelled burning or had the smoke detector pierce our eardrums. Don't Miss: How the Freezer Can Save Your Almost-Burnt Food The casua ...more

Fall is the time for comfort foods—and what is more comforting than crusty bread slathered in melted cheese? Owning a fondue pot is both convenient and wonderful, but not all of us have the luxury of space for nonessential kitchen appliances. However, there are plenty of ways ...more

Often, despite your favorite makeup mecca's rows and rows of endless colors, applicators, and brands, it's hard to find the perfect shade of lipstick—especially one at the price you want. Rather than resorting to what's available in stores, turn to your stovetop and a box of c ...more

I'm often reluctant to use a home screen launcher other than the stock one on my Android. Once you're well acclimated with something, complacency sets in, welcoming change with much resistance. Well, my friends, I have seen the error of my ways... After using various differen ...more

Certain ingredients that a professional chef might work with in a restaurant-style setting may seem bizarre, dangerous, and even downright scary to a home cook, and for good reason. One of these examples is lye. Yes, that's lye, the alkaline base used to make soap, dissolve h ...more

Fish is delicious, and as the Harvard School of Public Health points out, incredibly good for you. There are many studies that show regularly consuming a couple of servings of fish per week can help prevent heart disease and may well reduce your chances of stroke, depression, ...more

Who doesn't enjoy sitting down to a nice dinner with a cocktail in hand? After a long day, a drink is a great way to unwind. Yet your favorite spirits can do more than just help you relax after work. By utilizing alcohol in the kitchen, you can enhance everything from how food ...more

This was a busy week in the tech space. After everyone got over the major announcements of Apple's latest, we examined the metaverse through the lens of Hollywood, and then took a closer look at Facebook's first smartglasses. We also took a trip back through history using Sna ...more

Amid a troubling resurgence in coronavirus cases, led by the new Delta variant, augmented reality is once again moving back into the spotlight as a solution, especially now that the move to return to offices has been stalled. This week, a few developments in the AR space offe ...more

Throughout Thursday's virtual Snap Partner Summit, Snapchat's parent company made a profound statement: If you use Snapchat, you're a creator. Of Snapchat's more than 500 million creators (aka daily active users), about 40% interact with AR daily to capture content. Don't Mi ...more

One of the most convenient features in the Netflix app is the ability to download movies and TV shows to your device, which lets you avoid potential streaming issues and watch content offline whenever you want. To make downloading even more convenient, you can automatically do ...more

What does it mean when a software company obsessively focused on innovating the way we use our mobile devices to see and communicate with the world adds virtual voice agents? Possibly e-commerce magic, with a powerful layer of augmented reality. That's what may be in the offi ...more

Google has added a flurry of new features to its YouTube Music recently to prepare it to replace Google Play Music, which will be sent to live on a farm with Google Reader, Inbox by Gmail, and other sunsetted Google products by the end of the year. The latest comes in the for ...more

A modern iPhone is capable of running sophisticated, exquisitely-rendered games that rival titles on current-generation consoles. However, there is some value in classic video game titles, whether you grew up playing games on the Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System, and ...more

An attacker can repurpose public MyBB forums to act as command-and-control servers. It only takes a few lines of code to configure a MacBook to fetch commands and send responses to any website the attacker desires. Before you keep reading, know that this project is not geared ...more

Smartphones are more like computers than actual telephones. Unfortunately, thieves, hackers, and other bad actors know this and are always looking to make money off your personal data. Thankfully, your Galaxy S20, S20+, or S20 Ultra has tools to combat these threats — as long ...more

People fundamentally distrust magicians. And they should. The illusions they proffer are just that, illusions meant to astound rather than tangible interactions and results that have weight and meaning in our real world. Our lizard brains know this, and, no matter what the out ...more

If you made a resolution for 2020 to get healthier, it's essential to concentrate on your mental health just as much as you do on physical fitness. Running and exercising is great, but a sound mind is integral to a healthy and balanced life, and you can improve your emotional ...more

The year 2019 was filled with all the normal peaks and valleys of the tech business cycle, but this year was particularly important in a space as relatively young as the augmented reality industry. What once seemed like a vast fertile bed of mobile AR apps, powered by Apple's ...more

Many people don't realize much better audio can sound on their phones. While it's solid to begin with, Samsung has included several options in the Galaxy Note 10+ that will upgrade your listening experience to profound status. While sound quality is somewhat subjective, there ...more

Apple released iOS 13.0 on Sept. 19 and announced on the same day the release of iOS 13.1 on Sept. 30. But that deadline was pushed up to Sept. 24, and that's why we have 13.1 just five days after 13.0. But that's good news since we don't have to wait any longer for some of th ...more

So the new iPhones have arrived. Like last year, Apple released three iPhones in three different sizes that vary in price and specs. There's the base model iPhone 11, and then there are the real deal, premium models, the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max. The iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro ...more

Phones these days are expensive. The iPhone 11 Pro is presumed to start at $999, following the iPhone XS and iPhone X's leads. One way to bring down that cost is to trade in your old iPhone, but there isn't one clear-cut way to do that. You could trade your iPhone into a parti ...more

Smartphone videos get better and better each year. Seven or eight years ago, who would have thought iPhone and Android phones could support 4K video recording. Some phones can even shoot slow-motion at 960 fps. But no matter the resolution or frame rate, a phone's rolling shut ...more

With an inconspicuous Android phone and USB flash drive, an attacker can compromise a Windows 10 computer in less than 15 seconds. Once a root shell has been established, long-term persistence to the backdoor can be configured with just two simple commands — all while bypassin ...more

If you want to get started sniffing Wi-Fi networks, you usually need to start with a wireless network adapter. But thanks to a Wi-Fi sniffing library written in Arduino and the ultra-cheap ESP8266 chip, you might not need one. For less than $10 in electronics, you can build a ...more

Mystery is a tricky thing. Used correctly, it can give onlookers the impression that wondrous and perhaps valuable things are afoot. However, once the veil of suspension of disbelief is removed in any significant way, that same mystery can quickly turn into not just skepticism ...more

If you're on the hunt for a profitable side-gig, or even a completely new way to to make money, you'll want to take a look at Upwork, a leading freelancing platform that connects skilled freelancers with clients from all over the world. Upwork allows you to build your own onl ...more

Its official: On May 8, T-Mobile finally released the Android Oreo update for the LG V30 and V30+. Now, every major US wireless carrier has pushed the update. For me, this update is a big deal. Not only does Android Oreo bring some new tools and features, but LG has also inclu ...more

Analysis of photographs and social connections can be a huge component of social engineering. Understanding who a person is, as well as who they know, can establish links within a company. This information could be used by hackers to execute elaborate social engineering attack ...more

The iOS App Store is a big place, offering over two million applications in total. However, there are actually some apps you can and should install on your iPhone that the iOS App Store doesn't include. And no, these apps do not require any difficult jailbreaking or complicate ...more

After finding and monitoring nearby wireless access points and devices connected to them, hackers can use this information to bypass some types of security, like the kind used for Wi-Fi hotspots in coffee shops, hotels, and in flights high above the ground. By swapping their M ...more

The internet is constantly under siege by bots searching for vulnerabilities to attack and exploit. While conventional wisdom is to prevent these attacks, there are ways to deliberately lure hackers into a trap in order to spy on them, study their behavior, and capture samples ...more

Millions of travelers pass through airports each day without understanding how powerful and insecure a boarding pass can be. Anyone can scan the boarding pass barcode with a mobile app, allowing access to frequent-flyer accounts and even a passenger's temporary airline account ...more

Puzzle games are great at giving your brain a workout while keeping things fun and killing time. They stimulate your noggin as you strategize and plan your next move, whether it's to keep your character from getting killed, or to get that special item to finally complete your ...more

Kylo Ren, conflicted villain of the new Star Wars trilogy, will surely be a major presence again this Halloween, with The Last Jedi fast approaching. His costume, all black and layered, complete with dark-side helmet and crossguard lightsaber, seems quite perfect for Oct. 31 — ...more

The Watch Dogs video game series came out in 2014, enamoring audiences with the idea of a seemingly magical smartphone that could change traffic signals, hack web cameras, and even remotely control forklifts. This may sound like science fiction, but The Sonic uses a customized ...more

Virtual private networks, or VPNs, are popular for helping you stay anonymous online by changing your IP address, encrypting traffic, and hiding your location. However, common IoT devices, media players, and smart TVs are hard to connect to a VPN, but we have a solution: Turn ...more

Kali Linux is the obvious first choice of an operating system for most new hackers, coming bundled with a curated collection of tools organized into easy-to-navigate menus and a live boot option that is very newbie-friendly. But Kali isn't the only distribution targeted at pen ...more

During a penetration test, one of the most important aspects of engaging a target is information gathering. The more information you have coming into an attack, the more likely the attack is to succeed. In this article, I'll be looking at SpiderFoot, a modular cross-platform O ...more

Equifax reported on Sept. 7 that it discovered a breach on July 29 which affects roughly half of Americans, many of whom don't realize they have dealings with the company. Hackers got away with social security numbers, addresses, and driver's license numbers, foreshadowing a " ...more

On April 7, 2017, residents in Dallas, Texas, woke to the sound of emergency sirens blaring all over the city. No one could shut them off, and after repeated efforts to contain the situation, the city had to shut down the entire system. While the media reported a sophisticated ...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

What happens when a entrepeneur/theme park creator and special effects artist/magician team up? You get a team crazy enough to create the first true virtual reality theme park (sorry, Six Flags). They only have a single experience so far, but it's already taken a giant leap be ...more

When it comes to automation apps on Android, Tasker is still the king of the hill. For a price of $2.99 on the Google Play Store, it's a great buy for any would-be tinkerer that would like to get into automating actions on their Android device. Then, when you consider that the ...more

Windows 10 is officially here, and frankly, there's a ton of new features in Microsoft's latest operating system. From the return of the Start menu to the new Edge browser, Windows 10 can take some getting used to. Luckily, we've done a lot of the leg work for you, and what f ...more

NOTICE: Ciuffy will be answering questions related to my articles on my behalf as I am very busy. Hope You Have Fun !!! Hello Guys, Welcome to my first tutorial and in this tutorial we are basically going to create a port scanner in python ( I guess without external librarie ...more

The launch of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean was also the launch of Google Now, a service that was supposed to one-up Siri, the resident personal assistant for iOS devices. Google Now offered enticing features, but its launch went unnoticed by a great many Android users. But that was ...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

As I said in this earlier post, there's no easy way to explain or define the Steampunk aesthetic. There are a large number of Steampunk tropes or "cues", as I call them, that bring to mind the feeling of Steampunk. These cues combine to push past the "not-Steampunk" threshold ...more

One of the hardest, most intimidating parts of making your own Steampunk guns from scratch is the wooden stock of the gun. To be fair, it's probably the hardest part. It requires the most artistry, and is the easiest to mess up. So, I'm going to give you a guide to making you ...more

There is a whole world of smartphone accessories out there, some of which are more quirky than others and don't get the recognition they deserve. But these sometimes strange, sometimes embarrassing products can really make life easier on your iPhone or Android phone. We've fo ...more