Life Is Life

Not sold on Apple's iPhone claims of battery performance? I will show you some simple tweaks and tips to reduce that rapid battery drain and extend the use of your iphone between charges -free. iOS displays the battery level in the top right corner of the status bar. You can ...more

Last year, I wrote a post on "10 Thrifty DIY Christmas Gift Ideas" for people looking to get crafty during the gift-giving season. It seemed only right to do a followup this year with 10 more ideas! Gift-giving for the Christmas holidays does not have to be an expensive ordea ...more

According to special relativity, if a twin leaves earth in a high-speed rocket, goes out into space, and then returns to earth, he will return younger than his twin who stays home. This is because, according in Einstein, the slowest way to get from a particular point now to t ...more

1 Identify the child's talents, and discuss the opportunities he has to use them in productive ways. If you notice that the child you're mentoring is excellent with counting money, talk about how the child should consider a career in banking or running a business one day. 2 ...more

Dutch artist Theo Jansen creates incredible kinetic, wind powered sculptures, resembling the skeletons of ambiguous beasts.  Jansen's artist statement: "Since 1990 I have been occupied creating new forms of life. Not pollen or seeds but plastic yellow tubes are used as the ...more

UGC beauty How-To video is a true YouTube phenomenon. Considering the internet's tendency toward the male bias, the complete domination of beauty in YouTube's How To & Style section is noteworthy. The video below, by YouTube creator Michelle Phan (9 million views! on her YouT ...more

WTF. If you're going to mark yourself for life... ...why not venture into the absurd. Weird Al, Brangelina's kid, In-N-Out, Gollum and Google all get human real estate. If only we had the courage. This video will either induce inspiration or horror. WTF. If you're going to ma ...more

Dan Osman was a real life Spiderman. This wild man did not die recklessly, but due to unfortunate equipment failure in Yosemite in 1998. This week is the tenth anniversary of his death. This is archived footage of his record breaking ascent of Lover's Leap. He climbed 405 fee ...more

Among the various components of the emerging augmented reality space, the most lucrative is the advertising market. The prospect of turning every object, every location, ever signpost in the real world into a discount code or virtual transaction interface is why AR will ultima ...more

Thanks to the COVID-19 virus, the whole country is staying home. That means no dining out, no going to bars, no live music, and, sadly, no movie theaters. While you might think that means you'll have to wait to see movies like "The Invisible Man," "Emma," and "The Hunt," think ...more

This week's Apple earnings offered a report of solid performance and guarded optimism about future iPhone sales, which may be impacted later this year by issues around the current coronavirus epidemic in China. But what seems to have surprised many on Wall Street are the stro ...more

Imagine an Instagram feed filled with a wild array of vivid color. Beautiful right? But when you look at the photos in your iPhone or Android phone's albums, they're all just too dull to pull off that dynamic look. There's no doubt that colorful images are more eye-catching th ...more

Until next March, the iPhone XS and Samsung Galaxy S9 will be the only phones considered by many. Whether you're an Apple fan wanting to see how your new phone stacks up against the competition or a buyer on the fence, here's how the latest flagships from the two biggest brand ...more

In its latest feature with an assist from augmented reality in storytelling, the New York Times shows readers the virtual crime scene it constructed to prove that the Syrian military conducted chemical warfare against its citizens. In the article, "How We Created a Virtual Cr ...more

Preserving battery life has become one of the biggest problems for the average user. Whether you're on Android or iPhone, your battery is probably a massive concern. While there are a ton of battery-saving tips out there, they mainly rely on you manually performing actions you ...more

Most of us have never put much thought into this, but the question needs to be asked — what exactly happens to all of our online accounts when we die? No, the internet won't just know and delete accounts for you, so you need to plan for life's one guarantee. Because without a ...more

While Animal Crossing's emphasis has always been on making friends with the animals that populate your world, each subsequent game following its initial release has stressed relationships with human players more and more. In Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, making human friends i ...more

This is a tale about microbes, a man who became a hermit, and the parchment that carries both of their stories. Sometime around 1190 AD in Italy, a man named Laurentius Loricatus was born. Trained to be a soldier, Loricatus killed someone by accident and was stricken with rem ...more

Bacteria, viruses and other germs sometimes set off the immune system to overreact, producing a severe condition called sepsis. Sepsis is so dangerous that it is the leading cause of death of children across the world, killing a million kids every year, mostly in developing co ...more

If you haven't been on any sort of social media all day — which I seriously doubt — then you might not have heard that today, June 30, is Social Media Day. It's been trending on Twitter, but has also been making appearances on Instagram and Facebook. While major influencers ar ...more

Deadly rat lungworm parasites have found their way into Florida. The parasitic worm relies on snails and rats to complete its life cycle, but don't let this nematode's name fool you. This worm can cause meningitis and death in humans who inadvertently consume snails, frogs, or ...more

If you're someone who loves to read, you've probably read a book that made you want to hop into the story and live in the world that wasn't your own. Reading has a way of letting us escape into other worlds and experience things that we normally wouldn't be able to. Augmented ...more

While restaurants and classrooms have enacted policies banning cell phones, one father has had enough of his kids' obsessive phone habits. Dr. Tim Farnum is now seeking to ban the sale of smartphones to children under 13. Yes, you read that right. Farnum was inspired to propo ...more

Well, well, well. Uber, we knew you were investing a ton of money into creating self-driving taxis and flying cars, but what we didn't know is that you were already testing out your driverless vehicles on the streets of New York City. Just kidding! I mean, I know Uber isn't ...more

Antibiotics used to prevent diseases in livestock are creating a world of hurt for humans and the soil we depend on for food. Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is a global health issue. The overuse, underuse, and poor use of these life-saving drugs is rapidly removing them a ...more

The Great Barrier Reef in Australia is the largest living system on the planet. Yet more than 90% of the reef is bleaching because of the loss of a tiny algae that lives within the coral. After three serious bleaching events in 1998, 2002, and 2016, the Great Barrier Reef is ...more

Welcome back to this series on making physical objects come to life on HoloLens with Vuforia. Now that we've set up Vuforia and readied our ImageTarget and camera system, we can see our work come to life. Because in the end, is that not one of the main driving forces when deve ...more

Responding to the rapid emergence of dangerous pathogens around the world, a new initiative to prevent or contain pandemics was announced in Davos, Switzerland, yesterday. If you ever worried that a highly contagious pathogen could take down your community, or the country, thi ...more

Breaking off a piece of that Kit Kat bar gets a lot more difficult when the whole thing weighs 13 pounds. Ann Reardon, a food scientist and dietitian with an ironic obsession for unhealthy desserts, started the very successful blog How To Cook That back in 2011 to showcase he ...more

Google's new Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones are available for pre-order right now, but the general public won't start to get their hands on these devices for another week or two. Tech reporters got some hands-on time at Google's launch event on October 4th, but camera testing ...more

The iconic, lovable gummy bear originated in Germany, where it goes by the name Gummibär— but that's not what makes it so much fun. The base of gummy bears is made up of gelatin, which gives them the signature elasticity that makes you feel like a kid again. But the fun doesn' ...more

Whether you're performing a factory reset to get your device ready for sale or trade-in, or you're wiping your device in the hopes of fixing software issues, there's a right way and a wrong way to go about it. Sure, it seems like a simple task on the surface, but if you're not ...more

When it comes to smartphones, the biggest complaint voiced by most users is battery life. Sure, it's unrealistic to expect your Android device to run for weeks without a recharge, but many folks struggle to even make it through the day without having to top off their battery. ...more

For foods that encompass both tastiness and convenience, it's hard to beat boxed mac and cheese. Mac and cheese in a box takes 15 minutes to make, dirties only one dish, requires no skill, costs only two bucks, and is, despite all of the above, wildly delicious. Yet it can get ...more

I've cracked thousands of eggs in my life, yet I still usually mess up when I make my morning eggs. Sometimes I crack the egg to hard and end up leaving half of the white on the counter. Other times I don't crack the egg hard enough, and end up spending 20 seconds digging with ...more

Doxing is the act of finding one's personal information through research and discovery, with little to no information to start with. You may have seen doxing in the news, for instance when not so long ago, hacker team Anonymous doxed and reported thousands of twitter accounts ...more

Herbs, both fresh and dried, can be intimidating and mysterious to cooks. Just how much is too much? How do you prepare them? Food writer Mark Bittman says you should think of herbs as "teeny vegetables." To me, that means we should be using more herbs in our food, especially ...more

Eating healthy poses a challenge nowadays with so many options that taste great but aren't really good for you. Nutritionists have made it their life's work to understand what actually does a body good. Here's how you can follow their example. Cut Back on Added Sugar I spoke ...more

Osteoarthritis can affect every gender and at any age but it commonly occurs in women than in men. In America there are approximately 27 million Americans aged over 25 who live with osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis commonly occurs after the age of 45. Men who are under the age ...more

We've all been there. Stranded in a large lot or parking garage, braving the rows upon rows of identical cars in an endless concrete landscape because, for the very life of us, we can't remember where we stashed the very ride that brought us there. Smartphones do almost every ...more

When you come home from the grocery store, you probably put away every single fruit and vegetable in the bins and drawers in your refrigerator. Any fifth grader knows that fridges work to preserve food, thus everything should go in there, right? Nope! Chances are, you've been ...more

Many of us experience highly emotional "freakouts", so to speak, more often than we'd like. Weather you experience them personally, or via your loved ones, it can be very difficult to think rationally during an episode, and for some people it can take quite a while to calm dow ...more

This past weekend Berlin celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall with a visit from France's Royal de Luxe street theatre company. Royal de Luxe creates insanely amazing large scale, mechanical street marionettes. Founded in 1979 by Jean Luc Courcoult, t ...more

In the last decade, the number of people working remotely in the US has increased dramatically, and so has their need for technology and software to supplement that remote work. Whether you work from home or a coworking office space, the requirement for highly compatible and h ...more

After testing a series of Android 8.0 builds, Essential hit the reset button and jumped to Android 8.1 Oreo. The beta program didn't last long, as Essential has now released the official 8.1 update to the masses. The features from the 8.0 betas are all still there, plus a few ...more

The headphone jack is becoming outdated technology in smartphones — that's what many manufacturers would have you believe. For the convenience of the audiophiles out there, we recently published our list of all phones that have removed the 3.5 mm jack. But what did each compan ...more

Hackers can be notoriously difficult to buy gifts for, so we've curated a list of the top 20 most popular items Null Byte readers are buying during their ethical-hacking studies. Whether you're buying a gift for a friend or have been dying to share this list with someone shopp ...more

Codenamed "Nougat" after the sugary stuff that fills your Snickers bar, Android 7.0 is living up to its name with tons of sweet features. There's almost too many changes over Marshmallow to cover in one go, with new functionality ranging from a revamped Doze Mode for battery s ...more

Whether scheduling meetings, events, tasks, or even keeping tabs on the weather, a good digital calendar can help you stay on top of your game in ways that a normal calendar could never do. Indeed, there are many calendars to choose from, but Google Calendar is one of the best ...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

Notch loves Halloween. He must, because he keeps putting scarier and scarier things into Minecraft around Halloween time! Today, Minecraft 1.4.2 was released, and it's a doozy. Versions 1.4 and 1.4.1 were actually skipped entirely, as lots of bug-fixes were patched between th ...more

Although the enterprise use cases for the Microsoft HoloLens 2 continue to impress, the arts community just can't stay away from the best augmented reality headset on the market. The latest example comes from a new exhibit that highlights one of Earth's most powerful but vuln ...more

With fears over the COVID-19 pandemic subsiding, live concerts are returning. And Doritos wants to send music fans to a few of them via an augmented reality promotion. Dubbed "Mark Your Play," the campaign is centered on scannable posters, denoted by a Doritos chip displayed ...more

Do you believe you just don't have an intuitive sense of math? Sadly, this is the case for many people. The reality is that math is learned with practice. No one is born with a math gene making them more intuitive than others. The Mathematics for Engineers Prep Bundle will sh ...more

We've already highlighted the importance of learning Microsoft Excel from a hacker's standpoint, but it's also just a good skill to have as you'll likely come across the number-crunching powerhouse at school and work, as well as in other areas of your life, such as budgeting. ...more

Alternate US history is the go-to move for hot new cable and streaming shows, from HBO's Watchmen to Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale, reimagining how things might have turned out is an endless well of narrative inspiration. The latest show to delve into this genre comes from Disne ...more

The entire wireless industry is working overtime to convince the world that 5G, and the higher prices associated with the faster speeds it affords, will not only be worth it but will deliver never-before-seen wonders. But few companies have produced such a stunningly well-done ...more

There might not be a better brand partnership for the speedy Sonic the Hedgehog character than a fast-food restaurant. For that matter, augmented reality is also the ideal technology for promoting a movie that features an animated talking rodent living life in the real world. ...more

The deadly Wuhan coronavirus outbreak has not only has claimed lives in China but also has caused disruption around the globe, particularly in the tech industry. To date, the virus has claimed more than 1,000 lives in China, according to the country's officials. Now the virus ...more

Christmas is just one week before Jan. 1. That means a lot of New Year's resolutions filled with promises to better ourselves with increased productivity, focus, and work ethics — but getting started can be challenging. Give the people in your life a leg up this holiday season ...more