Kid Fun

The Halloween season is the perfect time for telling scary stories, but augmented reality is here to bring the tradition of frightening children to the modern age. On Thursday, app developer Within released "Willowcrest Manor," the sixth story for its Wonderscope mobile AR ap ...more

It isn't too hard to see John Hanke's bias towards augmented reality. His company, Niantic, created the astronomically profitable game Pokémon GO, which revolves around AR technology. However, Hanke has a case against virtual reality—he believes it just won't be healthy, in mo ...more

Legacy Games, developer of mobile games for children, has just updated Crayola Color Blaster, an augmented reality Android adventure for Google Tango devices, with new content. "Paint My Dragon," a new storyline available as an in-app purchase ($2.99), brings dragons, ogres, ...more

Pokémon GO has become a cultural phenomenon. Finally, we can do what we always dreamed of back when we were kids—catch Pokémon in real life! But let's not forget that we're in adulthood now, and in adulthood, we can catch Pokémon by day and celebrate our successes at night. I ...more

In my household, we are frugal and somewhat picky eaters, so we have to be a little creative with the things we buy. We like to purchase items that can be used in multiple dishes to reduce cost—and because it's just more practical. Pancake mix is a favorite because it can be u ...more

According to the American Osteopathic Association, "1 in 5 teens has some form of hearing loss," and some experts believe it's because of an increase in headphones use. While I understand that music, movies, and video games help keep children preoccupied, there's no reason why ...more

Pop-Tarts are a pretty iconic breakfast food. And while I'm more of a bacon, eggs, and toast person myself... sometimes a sweet, gooey, artificially-flavored treat is just what you need in the morning. Yet, despite the fact that I do enjoy Pop-Tarts, I've always found them a l ...more

There's only one day that can top the aftermath of Easter and its copious amounts of leftover candy, and that is November — the day after Halloween. As you come down from your sugar rush and realize you now own more chocolate than your stomach can physically hold in one sittin ...more

My bathroom is like my own private arcade room. Whenever I'm seated comfortably on the toilet, no one is going to disturb me, so I can play anything I want on my smartphone. You probably do it, too — and your parents, kids, friends, colleagues, and boss — so don't be afraid to ...more

Single-serve yogurt cartons are so much fun. They're delicious, convenient, and the perfect size; no wonder it's so fun to open a new container of yogurt every morning. Yet as awesome as single-serve yogurt cartons are, there's something you really need to do: stop buying them ...more

Hello, ladies and gents! Today I will be discussing the fun and excitement of backdoor on an OSX system. Note: A lot of what I am going to say is directly based off of this article by Patrick Mosca. Please give him your gratitude and leave mine at the door! Step 1: Reverse S ...more

One of the best times to get creative during the year is Halloween, and if you're one of those people that like to make your own costumes and decorations, then here's a little something you can do for that scary night... A GHOST!!! Video: . Materials You'll need the following ...more

A great Halloween party depends on the right spooky ambience. Having some shrunken heads in strategic locations is an easy, fun way to get your guests in the right (frightened) frame of mind, and they require items you can easily find in your kitchen or at the local grocery st ...more

Pallets, Pallets, Pallets. You have to love them! How to build an outdoor play kitchen for the kids using old pallets and recycled / reclaimed wood. I came up with the idea after seeing how my young son loved playing with the one at childcare. Pallet projects and Pallet Ideas ...more

If there's anything I've ascertained from all my candy-eating, it's that Pop Rocks are singularly the most awesome candy ever. The carbon dioxide gas that's mixed with the hard sugar forms a load of tiny, 600-psi bubbles, which vigorously release when they melt in your mouth. ...more

The only bad thing about Portal is that you can't play it everywhere. You can't play it while camping, you can't play it in the car, and you can't play it in the waiting room at the dentists office (unless you lug around your laptop to all of these places. Weirdo). You defini ...more

Here's how to make a simple form of a slow burning fuse from materials around the house. WARNING: Ignition of an incendiary or explosive material may not be legal in your area, so check local laws before attempting. Use of this video content is at your own risk. Video: . I ma ...more

The electric air freshener is one of those devices that seems like it could only have one possible function, but can actually be repurposed in a few different ways. If you're looking for a practical use, you can turn it into a bug killer, but it's also perfect for pranks. Wit ...more

Remember going to the doctor when you were a kid? If the word 'traumatizing' comes to mind, you'll love the RoboDoc by MarkusB, a robotic doctor that makes checkups a little less scary (and a lot more fun) for kids. It all started when Markus took his 14-month-old daughter for ...more

From dynamite to lasers to LEDs, you can make graffiti with a lot of different things. Parisian artist Antonin Fourneau has added water to that list. He created this incredible LED wall that lights up wherever it's touched by water to create what he's dubbed "Water Light Graff ...more

One thing that's very crucial to gardening is the seed starter. Seed starters are very important for a number of reasons, including the fact that is an excellent way to make sure your seeds survive in their own little environment until you’re ready to transfer them to your gar ...more

Every summer for the last 26 years, hoards of hackers have descended on the Las Vegas Strip for DEFCON, the biggest hacker conference in the US. There's a wealth of talks every season (DEFCON 27 has at least 95 scheduled), and there have been some essential topics to learn fro ...more

The reality of tomorrow will not be static. We're here to bring you a daily look into the cutting edge innovations poised to merge the impossible worlds of our imagination with real life. We're NextReality. What We're All About We're about to take a leap into the future that ...more

One of the hottest trends in the food world right now is "spiralized" vegetables. I will confess that I am a bit suspicious of any diet or food fad that eliminates an entire food group for anything other than physician-ordered health reasons, but something really good has foll ...more

Google's Chromecast is quite literally one of my favorite inventions of the past five years, allowing me to kick back, relax, and enjoy the various forms of streaming entertainment it has up for grabs. Don't Miss: How to Use Your Chromecast Without Wi-Fi But as awesome as it ...more

Soda bread, corned beef and cabbage, and colcannon are all great dishes to serve up on St. Patrick's Day, but desserts really let your inner leprechaun come out to play. Not only can you have fun incorporating all kinds of tasty Irish liquors into baked goods, you get to dye t ...more

How much screen time is too much for a child? Should you let your children have a smartphone or tablet? What age is appropriate to introduce them to technology? These are just a few tough questions parents face. Research has shown that kids age 8-12 spend up to six hours a da ...more

It appears that the new AR app from LEGO is inching closer to release. LEGO had the unique distinction of being featured on-stage by both Apple and Google to show-off the capabilities ARKit and ARCore, respectively. While the latter is still in a preview and available to only ...more

NBA star Andre Iguodala, of the Golden State Warriors, got to try out a Magic Leap demo in Florida and started dishing out some pretty revealing details about the upcoming mixed reality headset to CNET's Brian Tong. Apparently, Iguodala "felt" something in his hand while he w ...more

Microsoft's augmented reality headset, the HoloLens, is getting a taste of the classroom with Lifeliqe's new mixed reality apps for kids. Lifeliqe (pronounced "life-like"), a visual education company that creates digital science curriculums for students by using the latest MR ...more

Augmented reality seems to be the talk of the town lately, with everything from glasses to furniture stores prepping to implement exciting, new AR technology. Well now, it looks like even our food is getting a makeover for the augmented reality future. Dr. Katsunori Okajima, ...more

All across the country, retailers like Best Buy, Target, and Walmart are gearing up for their Black Friday sales. Brick and mortar stores are already packed to the brim with inventory in anticipation of the craziness that will strike as soon as the doors open the day after Tha ...more

For generations, parents have been struggling to come up with innovative ways to get their kids to eat their vegetables. They'll cut them into fun shapes, bake them in cheese, batter, and deep-fry them. Don't Miss: 5 Ways to Make Your Vegetables Taste Better Japanese food st ...more

Listen up, children, pregnant women, and lightweights: this particular KitKat variety is not for you. Well, with 0.8% alcoholic content per 2 KitKat bars, it's highly unlikely anyone will actually get drunk on these things. Still... The newest flavor of KitKat (or Kit Kat) in ...more

There are many reasons to keep adult websites off your iOS device. They can pop up accidentally at the least opportune moments, can give your device malware, and are not welcome in a kid-friendly home. Plus, there's a chance that your porn viewing habits could become public o ...more

When I was a little kid, my parents often eschewed cakes for my birthday parties, and instead opted for ice cream sundaes and banana splits. It made perfect sense: ice cream is so easy, and you can get multiple flavors to ensure that everyone is happy. Don't Miss: How to Make ...more

These days, we truly have a world of knowledge at our fingertips. Trouble is, a large portion of that information is not something you'd want your five-year-old learning about quite yet. Recognizing this, Google has created a kids-friendly version of their immensely popular v ...more

Practically every kid in the '80s would rush home after school to put in some time on the first-gen Nintendo before their parents got home. Games like Super Mario Bros. and Super Smash Bros. were synonymous with fun times, and to this day, call up a wave of nostalgia amongst G ...more

While living alone, I grew to enjoy cooking. Not only was it necessary to my existence, but it was cheaper than eating out. One thing I really came to love was garlic, especially its smell. If a recipe didn't ask for it, I added it anyways. The only thing I hate about garlic ...more

A new coat of paint is an easy, cheap way to make your home look instantly better, but dealing with paint fumes for days afterward isn't so fun, especially if you have kids or pets. Most household paints have VOCs (volatile organic compounds) in them that release fumes as the ...more

In this project, you'll learn how to re-purpose low-cost sprinkler parts into a high-powered CANDY CANNON. Be the coolest person on the block by building a pneumatic device that will launch candy 100 feet in the air—you can make it rain down all kinds of sugary treats!!! It's ...more

Here's a children's umbrella lined with neon green EL wire. It's definitely an easy and fun project for kids to do with their parents, and more importantly, it keeps the little mischiefs safer if they're out and about on rainy days. For even more creative inspiration ideas us ...more

Action games encompass a wide array of categories, ranging from racing games that pit you against players the world over for track domination, to endless runners that push you to set ever higher scores, and RPGs that let you embark on adventures in fantasy worlds. With such a ...more

Running diagnostics on your Android phone can be a very tedious process. More often than not, you need to key in dialer codes to see if your device's hardware is functioning properly, though you can also download apps — but these are often hard to understand for a layperson. W ...more

Whether you're riding the subway on your way home from work, or stuck in the backseat of the car on a long road trip, there are times when you need to entertain yourself without a mobile data connection. A good mobile game would pass the time perfectly, but not every game work ...more

The internet was blowing up recently over this mind-blowing, mouth-watering video of a woman making a cake decoration out of… wait for it… chocolate bubble wrap. Yes, that's right: she turned the ubiquitous packing material into the mold for an absolutely gorgeous cake embelli ...more

Yes, screen savers are fun to look at for a few seconds, but those animations actually used to serve a purpose beyond simple entertainment. In older CRT and plasma monitors, and even newer OLED ones, leaving a static image on the screen for an extended period of time could cr ...more

Alcohol is a marvelous thing. It might even be responsible for saving civilization. And we're always fans of hacking our booze intake, whether it's learning how to drink all night long without getting drunk or how to discreetly get your drink on without anyone knowing. Now, i ...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

Apple's iOS 13 has been quite the disrupter. The initial update featured over 200 new features and changes, while its successor, iOS 13.1, brought another 22 to the mix. With the company's latest update, iOS 13.2, you'll see an extra 22 amendments on your iPhone, including new ...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

While you were slaving away at work or school or whatever you were so busy doing over the last seven days, people have been hard at work creating a variety of new Snapchat lenses for your enjoyment. These lenses are hot off the presses, and I'm honestly really impressed with t ...more

It's Friday, April 6, and that means it's time to look at some of the hottest lenses from the past week created by Snapchat users everywhere. Some memes are evergreen, some dissolve within a week, but these lenses are blazing hot right now in snaps across the platform. If you ...more

While you were busy browsing Instagram, composing tweets, or chasing Snapchat updates, an eight-year-old ARKit developer was hard at work on her first step toward taking over the tech world via augmented reality. A new app called A.R.tist, created by Nova Fleming, allows user ...more

Puzzle games are a great way to kill time and exercise your brain in one fell swoop. They challenge you to think strategically and plan ahead, whether that's to create killer chain combinations for maximum points, or to plain old keep from getting killed. But with so many puz ...more

Social media is kind of depressing. On one hand, we love knowing what's happening in the lives of others. On the other hand, everyone seems happier, better looking, and more successful than you. We're putting on a facade by posting statuses and writing comments that present th ...more

Last week, Next Reality wrote about how the Microsoft HoloLens team is partnering with thyssenkrupp. Their mission? To bring mixed reality to the workplace. Now, Microsoft has just confirmed in a blog post that the HoloLens has passed the basic impact tests for protective eyew ...more

NextReality will be giving readers a rundown of the augmented and mixed reality news briefs from the preceding week that we didn't cover already. This way, you'll never miss anything of importance in the NextReality landscape, and will always know what's going on with new augm ...more

Sony has upped the ante for the promotion of Smurfs: The Lost Village, which was released on April 7 in the US, with a mixed reality experience via Microsoft's HoloLens. The experience in question is actually a children's game, and was created by media agency OMD and AOL's Pa ...more

When we were kids, Saint Patrick's Day was a green-hued holiday that promised green eggs in the morning and green mashed potatoes in the evening... along with some traditional corned beef and cabbage, of course. Don't Miss: 8 Delicious Dessert Recipes for St. Patrick's Day W ...more