If you're a tech enthusiast, there's no way you're not watching HBO's Silicon Valley. So you surely know the Pied Piper crew's latest shenanigans involve an app that uses a phone's camera to find facts about food items — a sort of Shazaam for food, if you may. What originally ...more
Rumor has it that Google Assistant will be coming to an iPhone near you. A "trusted source" broke the news of GA's arrival on iOS to Android Police ahead of Google's I/O conference this week. The iOS version of the Google Assistant app would most likely incorporate a chat fe ...more
Google loves to play games. That's just what they did when they went ahead and teased us with a few Android O hints after Reddit user Zitroney unlocked an Easter egg in a Google Creative Lab developer's app ShortStories. At the moment Android O, Google's upcoming version of A ...more
It really is a pain getting an Apple device fixed ... What's a gal to do when there's jelly stuck in your Macbook Pro fan and no Apple Store in sight? (Yes, this actually happened to me. Stop laughing.) Good news for everyone in a similar situation with their phone: The Apple ...more
The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has been purchasing spyware from the Milan-based Hacking Team and its US subsidiary Cicom USA since 2012. Public records reveal invoices between Cicom USA and the DEA that have ranged between $22,000 to $575,000 from 2012 to 2015. Hacking Tea ...more
It was nice while it lasted. Samsung users who managed to get their hands on the Galaxy S8 or S8+ early enjoyed the ability to launch any app through the dedicated Bixby button. Unfortunately, Samsung wasn't all that down with us using the Bixby button for purposes other than ...more
Reddit user Mr. Squishy recreated the entire Game Boy Pokémon Red Version game in Vanilla Minecraft, i.e., a Minecraft server without gameplay modifications. Instead of using mods, he used 357,000 commands blocks—blocks that execute commands in the popular sandbox game. How lo ...more
Here's another workday distraction for all you social media lovers out there: Pasted, launching out of beta today on iOS, is a simple collage and photo editing app mixing iconic '90s imagery with a love of the The Shins. Founded by Zeke Howard and Ben Fogarty of Spruced LLC, ...more
It appears a privacy lawsuit that began five years ago is about to come to an end, and you might get some money out of it. Eight companies—Foodspotting, Foursquare, Gowalla, Instagram, Kik, Path, Twitter, and Yelp—have agreed to a proposed settlement of $5.3 million in a case ...more
It's happened to all iOS users: You're talking to a friend or watching TV, and all of a sudden, you hear "I'm not quite sure what you've said." Apparently, your phone heard something that resembled "Hey, Siri," and activated the assistant. But now, thanks to a new patent from ...more
Apple's music streaming service just got a major update on Android devices. The Spotify competitor has implemented some changes for users on non-Apple phones that have been available to iOS devices for some time now. Nevertheless, Apple Music users on Android should welcome t ...more
Google Assistant is a handy little feature at most of the time, but it's upping the ante in honor of April Fools' Day this year. One eagle-eyed Redditor called tenbre noted that the smartphone assistant had added a new command—"April Foolproof"—which was found under the What ...more
While clicking random links on the internet probably isn't the best idea to begin with, now you can rest easy knowing that your iPhone won't repeatedly dial 911 after tapping a malicious link in Twitter, Facebook, or other apps that use iOS's WebView. The links in question, w ...more
Lyft is experimenting with commuter ride sharing by debuting a new "Shuttle" option, which offers pickups and drop-offs along select routes, much like a metro bus would do. The company is trying out the new option in San Francisco and Chicago, but if all goes well, we might al ...more
The HTC U isn't set to be revealed until mid-to-late-April, but that isn't stopping the leaks from creating hype. Weibo user Ann Bunny just leaked a spec sheet for the new HTC phone, which can be seen below. Keep in mind, though, all details are still just rumors at this point ...more
Oh, Waze—you know, that Google-owned traffic navigation app that tempts drivers into stopping at local food joints like Dunkin' Donuts and Taco Bell? Well, now you can even order a large iced coffee through the app before you even arrive at a fast food hotspot. Starting today ...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
Facebook Messenger has now incorporated a live location sharing feature, one week after Google Maps revealed its own real-time location tool. On Monday, the social media giant announced the new feature, which will allow users to share their live whereabouts with friends at the ...more
The rumors have been confirmed by Samsung themselves: Samsung has developed a virtual assistant of their own, named Bixby. Bixby will makes its debut with the Galaxy S8 on March 29, with a "Bixby dedicated button" on the side of the new phone. Samsung senior vice president I ...more
Good news for those of us who are both directionally impaired and like to hold our own concerts while driving: Waze and Spotify are teaming up to make your drive easy to navigate with a sweet soundtrack. The new Waze and Spotify update gives you the option of getting directio ...more
Over a billion people use WhatsApp, which makes it the most popular standalone messaging service out there. But if you're one of the many people whose group of friends relies on WhatsApp for all communication, chances are, you have several years-long messaging threads with all ...more
If your mechanical home button or capacitive navigation keys are on the fritz, doing something as simple as navigating your phone's interface becomes a tedious chore. In this situation, some users have turned to root mods that enable Android's software navigation bar to solve ...more
When Facebook purchased WhatsApp for $19.3 billion back in 2014, we all knew this was coming—it just took longer than we thought. But starting today, the data mining became official, and now, information from your favorite messaging app is no longer out of reach for the world' ...more
Gmail has been the email standard for quite some time now, and for good reason: it's a free service provided by one of the largest tech companies in the world that offers users an amazing feature set to manage, send, and keep track of all their important emails. However, all ...more
Several Samsung phones have a feature that turns the screen black and white when the battery is getting low. This takes advantage of the AMOLED display in these devices, because unlike red, green, and blue pixels, no battery power is used to display black pixels on this type o ...more
iPhone and iPad users are getting a huge update with iOS 10, and one of the biggest (and most sought after) redesigns is to the Music app, as shown at Apple's WWDC '16. The redesign essentially makes the user interface easier to navigate, which was something that was fairly cl ...more
Rooted users have been able to remap their hardware buttons since the earliest days of Android, allowing them to change the functionality behind one of the most centralized methods of interacting with a phone or tablet. Up until now, however, non-rooted users have been left ou ...more
When Android Nougat is released sometime this fall (or sooner), a new feature called "Quick Reply" will allow users to respond to incoming text messages directly from the notification. It will definitely be nice to carry on a conversation without leaving the screen you're curr ...more
There was a somewhat recent outbreak of malware on Android, and it came from an unlikely source—the Google Play Store. Several established apps have received updates a few months ago that contained an unwanted add-on called either DU Quick Charge, DU Battery Boost, DU Boost Ch ...more
This week has been quite a successful one for Google, thanks to non-stop news coverage of their developer-focused I/O conference. Now, there's even more reason for the buzz as they've just announced that Project Ara, their modular smartphone that could revolutionize the indus ...more
Samsung's next Galaxy Note smartphone is expected to contain some nifty new additions that the company hopes will give it the long desired edge it has been seeking over Apple. One of those features that might make the difference? An iris scanner, which could make it the first ...more
The team behind Minecraft, the popular open-world game beloved for its freedom to create and build, has teamed up with Oculus to release an official edition that takes you even further into the block-based world using a Samsung Gear VR headset. While the Oculus Rift version it ...more
I've been an Android user almost as long as the operating system has existed, so when I received my first iPhone in April, I felt like I was in a foreign land. Sure, it runs most of the apps I'm used to, and the phone itself feels about the same in my hand as any similarly-siz ...more
It's been known for a while that Google was opening up their Android N preview to OEMs, but we didn't think any manufacturers would actually take advantage. Well, we were wrong. Sony had just announced that Xperia Z3 owners will be able to install and run the N preview build. ...more
At Apple's highly anticipated special event held today at their headquarters in Cupertino, California, it was announced that their latest software update, iOS 9.3, would be available to the public complete with several new additions. The most notable element of this announceme ...more
The Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P have identical camera hardware—in fact, both use one of the highest-end camera sensors ever put into a smartphone. The only real difference between the cameras on Google's latest flagship devices is that the 6P natively supports electronic image stabi ...more
These days, if you're having friends over, they'll probably ask to log into your Wi-Fi network before asking for a drink. But if you've forgotten your password, it can be quite hard to find, since most devices obscure the characters with asterisks. But it honestly doesn't tak ...more
I had the chance to play around with an iPhone 6s this past weekend, and I have to say, I found the new 3D Touch feature to be pretty intriguing. It's still only partially implemented, but when it does work, it works quite well—you simply press a bit harder on certain elements ...more
Hello null_byters, after some time out here we are again with another tutorial, continuing our beautiful series, today we will write our first real world bash script. BEFORE WE START Before we start today's lesson Let's recap what we learned in the previous lesson, right now ...more
As one of the most powerful Android apps for connecting your phone or tablet to your other devices in various ways, Pushbullet had always been a fan—and Gadget Hacks—favorite. However, ever since late last year, many of the app's popular and once-free features now require a c ...more
This year, Google released two Nexus phones to glowing reviews, and as we've grown to expect, the Android community wasted no time in coming up with a root method for both. In fact, legendary root developer Chainfire even devised an entirely new "systemless" method for rooting ...more
When an Apple TV remains idle, it will eventually trigger its majestic video screen saver that includes aerial views New York, San Francisco, China, Hawaii, and more. Now, thanks to developer John Coates, you can have the exact same screen saver on any Mac running OS X Maveric ...more
Unlike in the physical world, on the internet you're actually able to shut people up and block spoilers of newly-released movies, your favorite TV shows, or a sports event you've yet to watch on your DVR. If you haven't seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens yet, or just want to m ...more
Whether it's delivery drones or getting the U.S. Postal Service to ship packages on Sundays, Amazon continues to remain innovative and ahead of the game, as further evidenced with their mobile app, Amazon Underground. While the app can potentially replace both the Amazon Shop ...more
I have a personal rule when it comes to an app's interface: If it doesn't follow Android's design guidelines, it was probably written with Apple's iOS in mind first and foremost. And if that truly is the case, I almost take this as a personal insult. I'm not a second-class ci ...more
Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers! As all you know by now, I'm loving this new show, Mr. Robot. Among the many things going for this innovative and captivating program is the realism of the hacking. I am using this series titled "The Hacks of Mr. Robot" to demonstrate the ha ...more
Downloading YouTube videos for offline use to watch later has always been a problematic endeavor. Dedicated third-party apps don't last long in the App Store, web-based converters aren't very functional on mobile, and rogue apps outside the App Store are tricky to sideload and ...more
Welcome back, my tenderfoot hackers! In this series, we are exploring the myriad of ways to hack web applications. As you know, web applications are those apps that run the websites of everything from your next door neighbor, to the all-powerful financial institutions that ru ...more
Google's Chrome browser is evolving into a very powerful platform. Not only can it be used to view your favorite website or mirror tabs to your Chromecast, but now that it has an App Engine, more powerful tools can be run within Chrome. Android developer Koushik Dutta has jus ...more
Snapchat developers insist that the app stay true to what its always been: a service for snapping and sharing self-destructing images. This belief is further hit home with their strict 31-character text limit, which some people refuse to abide by. Namely, Snapchatter Shayne Sk ...more
Sideloading apps on Android is incredibly easy—you just have to enable "Unknown sources" in your device's Security settings, then you're free to run an APK installer file to get the app installed. As simple as that sounds, the trouble comes when you're trying to find an APK t ...more
Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers! This tutorial will be the fourtenth in the Linux for hackers series and will focus on the MySQL database. Although this is not strictly a Linux tutorial, MySQL is the database of choice on most Linux distributions. In addition, it is the mo ...more
Just days after news spread that Snapchat could be exploited by spammers, an anonymous group of hackers have released the private information of over 4 million users of the popular photo-sharing application. Containing both username and phone number pairings, SnapchatDB! has ...more
Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers! Recently, I asked the Null Byte community what subject they would most like me to cover in future tutorials. Many of you cited scripting, and I decided it's best to cover this subject soon, so here goes. Any self-respecting hacker must be ...more
Welcome back, my hacker apprentices! Metasploit framework is an incredible hacking and pentesting tool that every hacker worth their salt should be conversant and capable on. In a previous post, I had provided you a cheat sheet of meterpreter commands. These commands are ess ...more
Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers. When Wi-Fi was first developed in the late 1990s, Wired Equivalent Privacy was created to give wireless communications confidentiality. WEP, as it became known, proved terribly flawed and easily cracked. You can read more about that in my b ...more
Welcome back, my fledgling hackers! There's an evil dictator hellbent on destroying the world, and in one of our last hacks, we successfully compromised his computer and saved the world from nuclear annihilation. Then, we covered our tracks so no one would know what we did, a ...more
Welcome back, my newbie hackers! We've already saved the world from nuclear annihilation and covered our tracks afterwards, but the world is still threatened by a malicious, megalomaniacal dictator with missiles and nuclear weapons. We need to keep a close eye on him, so in ...more
People are always looking for ways to save money, and for the most part, saving money and cheating the system are synonymous when it comes to things like free internet access. Practically every new gadget is capable of connecting to the web, which means more and more people ar ...more
Even though we all know it's a bad idea, a lot of people still use their browser's store password function to keep up with all their accounts. While convenient, this shortcut also makes their passwords very easy to find if you have access to the computer they're stored on. He ...more