The last third season episode of Rick and Morty aired Oct. 1, 2017. Over a year and a half later, we finally have confirmation that everyone's favorite morally ambiguous, universe-traveling duo will make their return in November. While six months is still quite a wait, you can ...more
If Google hasn't already demonstrated that it is serious about augmented reality, then it made it abundantly clear at the Google I/O keynote on Tuesday. After opening remarks from Google CEO Sundar Pinchai, which included a preview of AR navigation included in the Google I/O ...more
Bloatware remains one of the biggest problems with Android, especially when tied to a carrier. Removing bloatware usually requires you to take extreme measures like rooting. Unfortunately, the Galaxy S10 falls under this annoying umbrella, but there's an easy workaround. Pack ...more
Last week at Mobile World Congress 2019, Google put an augmented reality twist on its annual Android Partner Walk via its ARCore toolkit. For the uninitiated, the Android Partner Walk is a scavenger hunt for collector's pins hidden through the MWC's exhibition halls. The game ...more
Beloved toy maker Lego is returning to the realm of augmented reality, this time with an experience that explores supernatural fun. This week, the company unveiled its Hidden Side line of augmented reality playsets, which include an ordinary looking school, house, bus, and gr ...more
Among a crowded field of AR cloud companies aiming to power the future of augmented reality by creating a world of persistent holographic content that lives in a cloud, accessible across devices and accounts, Ubiquity6 is hoping it has found a way to differentiate its platform ...more
Millions depend on Google Maps for directions, and it's easy to see why. The app comes with tons of features like offline navigation, location sharing, and more. Google is far from done, however, and continually improves upon its navigation app to make it even more efficient a ...more
Bitmoji are personalized emoji that look like you and can be used to make funny memes or snappy replies. Normally, you have to find one of these reaction emojis in the Bitmoji app, then use Android's share menu to send it to the app where you ultimately want to post it, but th ...more
Two-factor authentication (also known as 2FA) adds a necessary additional layer of security to your username and password in many important apps. On Instagram, 2FA requires you to confirm it's you attempting to log in, with a special code sent to you via text message. Enter th ...more
Nearly a year to the day after the unveiling Magic Leap One, Magic Leap has dropped another update to the Lumin OS that runs the device. Lumin OS version 0.94 is available now as an over-the-air update or via download on the Creator Portal for Magic Leap One users. The bulk ...more
You really can't go wrong with Samsung Health when it comes to staying on top of fitness-related data. Its features help you keep track of workouts, track calorie and nutrition intake, and monitor your heart rate, just to name a few. And if you start exhibiting symptoms you've ...more
Hollywood has already proven that it's on board with augmented reality, with examples ranging from Avengers: Infinity War to Ralph Breaks the Internet. But one startup wants to make the augmented reality content that's being used to promote TV and film entertainment smarter. ...more
Augmented reality developers who have exhausted their treasure trove of video tutorials and panels from the recent Magic Leap developer conference can now shift their continuing education attention to Unity. The Unite Los Angeles 2018 conference took place on October 23, with ...more
WaveOptics, makers of diffractive waveguides, has inched closer toward getting products featuring its technology to market through a production partnership with a consumer electronics company whose clients include Google, Microsoft, and Sony. China-based Goertek, an original ...more
If you're hungry for pizza and ordering from Domino's in Australia, you can now see what your pie will look like in augmented reality before placing your order. Available through the App Store and Google Play, the updated Domino's mobile app includes New Pizza Chef, an entert ...more
One of the funniest scenes from the teaser trailer for the Wreck-It Ralph sequel is the basis for the new pre-show augmented reality experience via the Noovie ARCade app. Arriving in theaters on Nov. 21, Ralph Breaks the Internet finds the titular character expanding his digi ...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
While most kids his age are busy playing Fortnite, 11-year-old Yumo Soerianto is developing augmented reality games. Kids like Soerianto are the future of the augmented reality field — they'll likely be coming into their own as professional developers right as AR technologies ...more
While we've seen Snapchat apply sky segmentation to AR content, the makers of the Blue Sky Paint app have applied similar capabilities to create and share airborne art. Published by AR developer Kevaid and available now on the App Store, Blue Sky Paint is similar to Similar t ...more
Traditional media institution The New York Times continues to break new ground in its augmented reality news coverage, this time with a 3D volumetric capture of model Ashley Graham. The feature, part of the publication's coverage of New York Fashion Week, serves to shine a li ...more
If you subscribe to notifications for Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz's Twitter feed, you'd think everyone in the world already has a Magic Leap One. Alas, that is not the case, but those not within the geographic areas of Magic Leap's LiftOff service now have a loophole through w ...more
Despite its fifth-place finish in our ranking of the best transcriber apps on iOS, Voicera is still worth highlighting due to numerous factors that set it apart from the crowd. Besides being completely free to use on both iPhone and Android, the app's AI-based transcription se ...more
With every new Android update, hidden features are lurking under the surface. Google hides these options to prevent unnecessary tinkering by average users, leaving them in place for power users to discover. These secrets range from silly to really useful, with the latter openi ...more
I don't know about you, but nothing is more annoying than when my phone hits 15% and I'm nowhere near a charger. Not just because I know my phone will die soon, but until I reach a charger, I have to deal with the annoying low battery notification and LED light. Well, with And ...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
Escape rooms, those real world puzzle games that challenge teams to solve a mystery and gain their freedom from a locked room, are all the rage right now. But augmented reality games such as The Lockdown could make them obsolete. Available now via the App Store and Google Pla ...more
As expected, Apple revealed today at the WWDC keynote that ARKit 2.0 will support multiplayer gaming support and persistent content, which will arrive this fall with iOS 12. In addition to persistent and shared experiences, ARKit 2.0 will bring improved face tracking, more re ...more
The next big event Apple is holding is WWDC 2018, its Worldwide Developers Conference, is about to happen. If you want to see the first glimpse of iOS 12 for yourself, as well ARKit improvements, Apple Watch news, and maybe even some macOS announcements, here's how you can tun ...more
Android has gotten significantly better at handling intrusive ads over the years. Things have gotten to the point to where these nuisances are largely a non-issue for most of us. However, there are still a few ad-laden apps that fall through the cracks — particularly the kind ...more
It will likely take a few more years before smartglasses are ready for primetime as component makers achieve the innovations necessary for consumer-centric device designs. Nevertheless, two technology companies are making steps in that direction as Qualcomm is rumored to be wo ...more
Google's ARCore has expanded its support to include the Galaxy S9 and S9+, which means you get access to all the cool new apps that can sense the world around them. But one of ARCore's coolest uses so far is still Pixel-exclusive: AR stickers built right into the Google Camera ...more
During Tuesday's keynote at the I/O developer conference, Google unveiled new capabilities for its Lens visual search engine and expanded the availability of the platform in smartphone camera apps. Introduced at last year's edition of the conference, Google Lens launched as a ...more
Augmented reality is expected to eventually change everything, and the prevailing view is that those changes will be for the better. The converse view, however, is that the technology will further erode privacy. A new Netflix film called Anon, starring Clive Owen and Amanda S ...more
One of the better additions in the stock Android launcher is the Google Now page. Residing to the left of the home screen, this page presents a host of information based on the user's interests, which Google bases on analyzed data. Recently, the Google Now page design received ...more
While our time with the Protostar VM from Exploit Exercises was lovely, we must move on to bigger things and harder challenges. Exploit Exercises' Fusion VM offers some more challenging binary exploitation levels for us to tackle. The biggest change is that these levels are al ...more
Android Pie is bringing in plenty of changes, but the headlining feature is a set of navigation gestures like the iPhone X uses. With Android 9.0, you can now navigate through your phone using a total of seven new swipe gestures. The gesture controls are not enabled by defaul ...more
Alongside the usual collection of holiday-themed Lenses, Snapchatters received an extra-special treat from Snapchat over the weekend—a world-spanning Easter egg hunt. Like a highly-simplified version of Pokémon GO, The Great Snapchat Egg Hunt challenged Snapchat users to retr ...more
There are few apps or services better than Slack for keeping a team both communicative and productive. But it also makes it difficult to escape your job — after work hours and weekends should be yours, not Slack's. If you want to stop the barrage of notifications and messages ...more
Augmented reality startup 6D.ai is now accepting applicants for the closed beta of its 6D SDK. While operating in the background on a smartphone, the computer vision platform captures a dense 3D mesh in real time using just the device's camera (such a feat typically requires ...more
According to Indiana Jones, certain things belong in museums, but, thanks to augmented reality, you can now see some of the ancient treasures of the world in your own home via the Civilisations AR app from the BBC. The app, built by Nexus Studios, is available now on the App ...more
DxOMark, an independent camera reviewer, has become the go-to place where consumers and OEMs alike hope for good camera scores on major new smartphones. The Google Pixel 2 has topped the charts since Oct. 2017, when the score no doubt helped pull the phone out from its trouble ...more
Google and Samsung are the biggest players in the Android world. Despite a rocky launch, Google's Pixel 2 XL became one of the premier Android devices of 2017, headlined by fast performance and a pure version of Android. Still, many users prefer Samsung's offerings, and their ...more
We regret to inform you the former king of third-party keyboards, Swype, has officially retired on both Android and iOS. A few weeks ago, we noticed Swype's mysterious disappearance from the iOS App Store but had hoped it was just pulled temporarily, not gone forever. Unfortun ...more
While autonomous vehicles are almost assuredly the future of personal transportation, we are likely many years from seeing self-driving cars become as ubiquitous as manually-driven ones, as the auto industry has a myriad of government regulations and other constraints to conte ...more
A new survey of game developers paints a somewhat less than rosy future for augmented reality gaming, but there's still some hope for its long-term prospects. The Game Developers Conference, which is holding its annual event in March in San Francisco, recently surveyed about ...more
Some phones have a feature that turns your screen white for a second when you're taking a selfie in dim lighting. This does a great job of illuminating your face in a pinch, but there are two problems with it: First, not all phones have the feature, and second, it doesn't work ...more
It would be difficult to discuss the business of augmented reality without acknowledging the annual tech meat market of CES. The biggest stories of CES came courtesy of Vuzix, which debuted its consumer-centric Blade smartglasses, and Meta Company, which struck a deal with De ...more
A recent TED Talk makes a strong case for the healthcare industry to adopt augmented reality as a means to expanding access to surgical care across the globe. During her presentation held in New Orleans in Nov. 2017, Nadine Hachach-Haram, surgeon and co-founder of Proximie, a ...more
Mozilla baked an easily missed feature into their Firefox Browser for Android called the "tab queue," which you should definitely be using if you find yourself opening links a lot from emails, texts, and other link-heavy apps. With tab queuing enabled, you can save links as ne ...more
With Google's release of Poly API on Thursday, the search giant has found a way to simplify the workflow for AR creators by enabling the ability to integrate its 3D object search engine Poly directly into an application. While services like Turbosquid and Sketchfab, websites ...more
If you're trying to get somewhere fast, taking a toll road or two can definitely help you do that, but at a cost. When you're not in any rush, that would-be toll money will work much better in your gas tank, especially if it's only minutes that are being shaved from your trip. ...more
Now that the holiday season has officially kicked off, Office Depot has updated its popular Elf Yourself app with a few new augmented reality options. But you'd be excused if you weren't overly thrilled with the implementation. For those who are unfamiliar with the app, Elf ...more
Amazon Web Services (AWS) opened its re:INVENT developers expo with a bang by launching Amazon Sumerian, a new tool that could become the dominant platform for building cross-platform augmented and virtual reality applications. Available now as a preview, Amazon Sumerian is a ...more
Between Renault Truck's testing of the HoloLens in factories and BMW promoting its newest model through Snapchat, the auto industry is hot for augmented reality to improve internal operations and engage consumers. Meanwhile, though Apple has made its initial play for AR with ...more
To the best of my recollection, Fruit Ninja was one of the first touchscreen games that appeared to really take advantage of the new paradigm of user input, turning the player's finger into a produce-slicing katana. At first blush, the latest title from Halfbrick Studios, mak ...more
Considered by many (perhaps unfairly) to be a very public failure, Google Glass can add another plot point to its comeback story, this time as a tool to teach social skills to children and adults with autism. Enter Brain Power, a company that has combined neuroscience and aug ...more
Now that it's been officially released for Android, Monument Valley 2 shot to the top of our best paid puzzle games list, and rightly so. This was no easy feat, as the games we covered ran the gamut of puzzles and all had stellar reviews. But there's just something about Monum ...more
Since the very first moment I saw the iPhone X track a human face and display the results in real-time on an Animoji character, I've been waiting for the first great hack of this new iPhone feature. Not only do we now have that first great demonstration, it's so impressive it ...more
Just one day before the retail release of the iPhone X, Apple CEO Tim Cook trumpeted the company's continued success during an earnings call with reporters conducted via telephone. And while he rolled out the expected glowing praise for the new iPhone, what stood out most was ...more
When the Super Bowl airs, every other TV network puts on reruns because no one wants to face that juggernaut for ratings. The launch of a new iPhone is the Super Bowl of the tech world, with the launch of the iPhone X being the biggest one yet. So it's either unfortunate timi ...more