Whoa. Someone just got caught this weekend cheating at the 2012 National Scrabble Championship in Florida. He was holding on to some blank tiles, which dropped on the floor mid-game. How did this kid even think he'd get away with hiding blank tiles? Wouldn't it be a little sus ...more
It seems like Apple is always releasing something new, so there must be a lot of lonely iDevices out there going unused, right? With Seedio, you can make the most of your Apple products by connecting them to make one synchronized loudspeaker. As long as all the devices have th ...more
Forget video games. Go outside. Get some fresh air. Get out a little anger while you're at it. Play Boxwars. Boxwars isn't exactly larping, though it may fall into a similar realm. It all started in 2008 when 3 dudes witnessed a few children innocently smashing each other wit ...more
From Wikipedia, "Falconry is is a sport which involves the use of trained raptors (birds of prey) to hunt or pursue game for humans." An unassuming hunter, the falcon is surprisingly powerful. The training process is quite complex. Falcons have the potential to be incredibly ...more
Apple has a secret iMessage effect so hidden that there's only one way to unlock it, and it's not by digging through the Messages app's settings, tools, effects, or interface. However, it's used the same way whether you're messaging from an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, so it's easy t ...more
The global gaming market is expected to generate $160 billion in 2020. With emerging markets in the Middle East and Africa, the planet's 2.5 billion gamers are always looking for the next great adventure. Many gamers are exceptional at their craft. Someone has to design the w ...more
Whether it's to delete a few photos or share a bunch with another app, there are times when you need to select several pictures at once. This would usually be annoying since you'd have to tap every picture you wanted to select, but there's a much faster way to batch select. O ...more
The Oscars are just a couple of days away when Hollywood will celebrate the best crop of films from 2019 in the US and internationally. To enhance the event for hardcore movie fans, the Los Angeles Times and Yahoo News have teamed up to produce an augmented reality experience ...more
Smartphones have made us all photographers in a sense, and with the sheer amount of pictures we take, it's become too easy for memorable moments to be overlooked. Thankfully, a feature in Google Photos makes it easy to revisit forgotten images and recordings. Google's awesome ...more
Picture it: you wake up in the middle of the night and check your phone. Maybe you want to check the time (your phone is your alarm clock, after all) or see if that person ever replied to your message. You double-tap or lift to wake it, and the screen lights up. You flinch at ...more
Editing photos on a phone, while not as good as editing on a desktop, is getting better and better with powerful tools to whip photos into shape. But sometimes you just want a simple edit, like making a color photo black and white. Instead of downloading a separate app to fine ...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
So you're all done binge watching Stranger Things Season 3 and you want to start sharing your personal review with friends. First, congrats, you're a TV bingeing beast. (It's only been 24 hours!) Second, before you start texting spoilers, you might want to adorn your praise o ...more
An edited video with lots of different clips needs great transitions to be successful. Transitions support your story and message, and without any, there's always a chance that your audience might lose track of what's going on and when. When editing in Enlight Videoleap for iO ...more
The Galaxy S10 has finally been revealed to the masses, and it certainly doesn't disappoint. As the flagship to herald the tenth anniversary of the venerable Galaxy S line, the S10 has kept popular and familiar design elements like the immersive Infinity Display while employin ...more
In a previous tutorial, we were able to place the Mona Lisa on vertical surfaces such as walls, books, and monitors using ARKit 1.5. By combining the power of Scene Kit and Sprite Kit (Apple's 2D graphics engine), we can play a video on a flat surface in ARKit. In this tutori ...more
In a previous tutorial, we were able to measure horizontal surfaces such as the ground, tables, etc., all using ARKit. With ARKit 1.5, we're now able to measure vertical surfaces like walls! In this tutorial, you'll learn how to make your augmented reality app for iPads and i ...more
Among a treasure trove of new developer information on the Lumin OS that Magic Leap recently published on its Creator Portal appears to be the official confirmation of the Magic Leap Mobile Companion App. The app was alluded to in job postings previously reported by Next Real ...more
Have you noticed the many utility ARKit apps on the App Store that allow you to measure the sizes of horizontal planes in the world? Guess what? After this tutorial, you'll be able to do this yourself! In this tutorial, you'll learn how to make your augmented reality app for ...more
Royal wedding fever has officially taken over the media, and that obsession with the UK's latest marriage event has now extended to Snapchat, thanks to a new Lens from the Today Show. Released on Tuesday, the Today Royal Wedding Lens lets you virtually don one of the iconic h ...more
Do you see a red door and wonder if it might be a good idea to paint it black? You could "ask Ask Sherwin-Williams," or, better yet, you could just ask the new augmented reality features in the retailer's mobile app. While the company's ColorSnap Visualizer app for iOS and An ...more
One of the most successful rock bands still making music has just made augmented reality an integral part of its upcoming tour. Irish rock band U2 has announced a new mobile app experience that allows you to preview the group's live performance in your own home in AR. To expe ...more
The research team at Google has found yet another way for machine learning to simplify time-intensive tasks, and this one could eventually facilitate Star Wars-like holographic video. In a recent blog post, Google researchers demonstrated how a neural network is able to separ ...more
In just a few days, all the Galaxy S9 and S9+ leaks will come to an end, as Samsung will officially unveil its latest top-tier smartphone. But before that happens, we're all getting another leaked image of the handset thanks to a bit of snooping and the magic of augmented real ...more
The same approach to augmented reality that some companies use to improve workforce productivity could also make it easier for car owners to operate and maintain their vehicles. Mercedes-Benz is driving down that new path by releasing an augmented reality owner's manual calle ...more
Just days after the launch of Google Poly, the marketplace for 3D virtual objects that developers can use for augmented and virtual reality apps, SketchFab, the current leader in the space, is firing back with a major enhancement to its platform. The company has announced an ...more
It looks like the dust is finally starting to settle on Google's POLED PR nightmare. The Pixel 2 XL — one of the most hotly-anticipated phones of the year — has been plagued by screen issues and worries. While it is certainly not without its faults, Google has created several ...more
Andrew Mucci, a New Jersey-based vlogger who is also Social Media Coordinator at Sennheiser, likes to use Instagram not only as a platform for the brand but also as a place to experiment with content on his own account. Sennheiser, the German-based company that specializes in ...more
Here it is folks, after weeks of constant leaks and speculation surrounding the highly anticipated OnePlus 5, the company has decided to release a high-res image of the new phone on the official OnePlus Google+ page. The picture appears two days after the company officially a ...more
Get ready to draw like Leonardo da Vinci, or, at least, trace like him. A new augmented reality app, SketchAR, is the first mobile app that uses AR to allow users trace an image on real paper. The Lithuania-based company describes their product as "an application through which ...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
It took nearly six months, but Google has finally made its wildly popular iOS keyboard available to Android users. Technically, it's just an update to the existing Google Keyboard app for Android, but it renames the app to "Gboard" and includes all of the features from iOS, so ...more
In the revamped Messages app in iOS 10, you can now send animated GIFs from your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch without a third-party keyboard like Giphy or GIF Keyboard. Best of all, this is not just an iMessage-only feature. We tested it out and were able to send animated GIFs ...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
The highly anticipated VR headset hasn't been on the market long, but there's an issue that has some consumers, and even government officials, concerned about the Oculus Rift. You probably guessed the issue surrounds privacy and the extensive, not-so-secret way that it's colle ...more
Live streaming has emerged as a major part of the way people share information. With celebrities and news/media personalities utilizing mobile live streaming effectively to reach thousands, the appeal has bolstered the fortunes of Twitter's Periscope and Facebook's Live. Now, ...more
Another day, another company hopping on the virtual reality bandwagon. Today, it's fast food behemoth McDonald's, which is testing limited edition Happy Meal boxes that you can turn into a VR headset by punching out a couple holes and tearing along a few perforated seams. The ...more
Android comprises an entire ecosystem of apps, games, functions, and features, so it would only make sense that it has its own lexicon. Words, phrases, and acronyms that didn't exist ten years ago are now used in an off-the-cuff style by developers and support technicians acro ...more
Instead of the still image we've been accustomed to since the inception of Facebook, you also have the option to apply a seven-second video as your profile image, which definitely mixes things up a bit with GIF-like animations. Best of all, this can be done straight from your ...more
Snapchat has built upon the photo-sharing service it once was to become a money-sending, commercial-shelling, video-messaging giant. They improved their user experience by adding Stories, Geofilters, and even the rarely-used Snapcash feature, but why isn't there something as s ...more
With the sheer number of pictures stored on my iPhone, using the tap gesture on the status bar is extremely convenient and time-saving when I want to reach the beginning of my Camera Roll album in the Photos app. With just a quick tap, you can have your iOS device automatical ...more
Most smartphone games are clichéd and mundane, but every now and then a mobile game will appear with a new concept or idea that sets it apart from all the rest. While other developers continue to regurgitate the same old "winning" formulas, developer Sebastian Goszyla is chang ...more
Accumulating approximately one million downloads on the Google Play Store in less than 72 hours from its initial release, TouchPal instantly became a favorite among Android users. With the keyboard functioning on all cylinders, Chinese app developer CooTek set their focus on ...more
Back in the days of iOS 6, iPhone users were able to send a quick tweet from their notification center, but that has long since been removed. This convenient feature was missed enough on iOS 7 for devs to create a jailbreak tweak in its absence. Thankfully, due to the new widg ...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
It's pretty much agreed upon that all videos taken on your cell phone should be shot horizontally, i.e. landscape mode. The viewing size is already small, so making it skinnier only exacerbates the problem. Viewing vertical videos is terrible, and when you transfer those video ...more
There is no such thing as too much space when it comes to our smartphones. Space is the great equalizer of all things. No matter how many awesome features a device has, the amount of storage space available will always be a determining factor. Be it music, apps or photos, it's ...more
If you've recently jailbroken your iPhone 5, there's a likely chance that you're overwhelmed by the huge numbers of themes, add-ons and tweaks littered throughout the Cydia directory. The tweaks, of which there are over 1,000 in Cydia, resolve many issues and inconveniences t ...more
As most everyone knows, Android and Apple don't get along so well. Even the users don't get along well, with Android and iPhone users constantly berating and insulting each other online—any chance they get. I should know, since I was one of them, but I'm now rare breed who's l ...more
Free stuff is awesome. Zombies are awesome. And plants...well, plants are okay, but two out of three isn't bad. So, for this week only, PopCap is offering one of its all-time best sellers, Plants vs. Zombies, for FREE for being the Game Center's App of the Week in the iTunes A ...more
When most people think of stained glass, the first thing that comes to mind is a church, but it's become more popular in home decor as well. The biggest downside is that high quality stained glass pieces can be insanely expensive—and it's not an easy project to take on yoursel ...more
I can't say that I'm a huge Tweeter, but I'm definitely a good follower. Having the ability to follow comedians, brands, and athletes helps me stay up to date on the things I'm interested in, and I appreciate being thrown a good joke every now and then. Also, it's nice to see ...more
You can take macro photos on a huge variety of devices, whether you're using a DSLR with expensive lenses or just your iPhone (or any smartphone, for that matter). One common issue, though, is that it can be hard to get the image as crisp as you want because the depth of field ...more
If you use Facebook's Messenger app on your iPhone, your cell phone bill might just get a little cheaper. After recently adding voice chats to Messenger, the company just rolled out its new Free Call feature on the latest version of the iOS app, which allows users to make call ...more
No matter how advanced technology gets, there will always be room for classic video games in the hearts of nerds everywhere. Mini arcades became very popular, as they allowed users to take arcade games on the go. As Game Boys and other mobile gaming devices appeared, the mini ...more
Playing advanced games on your phone can be pretty frustrating sometimes. Touchscreen devices are great for everyday apps and games designed solely for them, but when it comes to games that require multiple actions in conjunction with directional movement, it gets ugly. Just ...more
Everything is documented these days, thanks to the Internet and mobile devices. Most people who own a smartphone use it to take lots of pictures. If you're one of those people, an app called Scoopshot can help you turn some of those photos into extra cash. Scoopshots lets you ...more
Whether you subscribe to Apple TV+ or not, the TV app on your iPhone is a great place to watch movies and TV shows. On the surface, it looks like a pretty straightforward app, but hidden features are lurking in the shadows that can enhance how you use it. First, there are the ...more
Widgets can display essential information from an app right on your iPhone's Lock Screen, but there's an even bigger reason you should be using them: fast access to your most-used apps. Thanks to iOS 16, you can add one widget above the time on the Lock Screen and up to four ...more
Without realizing it, you may be giving away the GPS coordinates of your home, workplace, school, and other important or secret locations. Unless you've blocked the feature on your iPhone, location data is stored in almost every photo and video you take, and anyone you share t ...more