Injustice: Gods Among Us is one of the most popular games to come out over the last couple of years. It was a hit on video game consoles, and it's got a solid 4.5 rating on both Google Play and the iOS App Store, with almost 2 million people rating the game combined. The game ...more
The new Nexus 6 and Nexus 9 models will be shipping with Android 5.0 Lollipop preinstalled, and the Nexus 4, 5, 7, and 10 will be getting the new OS update from Google very soon. But where does that leave the rest of us? All non-Nexus devices running versions of KitKat will h ...more
Android 5.0 has a killer new feature that should make securing your device easier than ever. It's called Smart Lock, and it essentially lets you bypass your secure lock screen when you're in a "trusted environment." This means that if you're connected to a known Bluetooth devi ...more
It didn't take long at all for developer Chainfire to sort out a root method for the new Android 5.0 Lollipop. After handling a few issues with changes to the SELinux kernel module, Chainfire pushed out an update to his popular SuperSU root app. Nexus Root Toolkit developer W ...more
If you've ever noticed that the stock launcher on an Android device seems to just feel faster than any third-party home screen replacement app, this is not a placebo effect. Most manufacturers, Samsung included, force their stock launchers to reside permanently in your phone's ...more
Many Android games use large, storage-heavy OBB files to store supplemental data. Generally, games with high-end graphics download these extra files when you install them from the Google Play Store. Most OBB files take up more than a gigabyte of space on your internal storage ...more
Getting a new phone is exciting, but having access to its exclusive apps ahead of its release is what we're all about here on Gadget Hacks. If you have a Galaxy Note 3, you've probably only had it for a year or less, so upgrading to the Note 4 may not be a viable option when ...more
Straight out of the box, the Nexus 5 is an awesome device, but even it can be faster with better battery life. Luckily, one of the things that makes it so awesome is that there are tons of developers creating mods for it, since it runs stock Android by default. When it comes t ...more
There's a never-ending selection of app launchers that want a permanent spot on your Android device. While some keep the stock-Android look with beefed-up versions of Google's launcher, Blur is relatively new on the scene, with a unique approach to app management that sets it ...more
When people first learn that their Android device is capable of dual-booting different operating systems, e.g. Linux, they almost universally respond with, "That's so cool." And for those of us ambitious enough to actually try one out, we are typically filled with glee as we s ...more
Anyone who has rooted their Android device has likely used a tool called Android Debug Bridge, better known as ADB, at some point during the process. For most, that is their only interaction with the ADB, but to be a true Android power user, you need to really know the tools a ...more
Bottled water is a rip-off. Not only is it pretty much the same stuff that comes out of your tap for free, but plastic bottles are rarely recycled and thus account for a huge amount of the waste that's overflowing our landfills. Next Up: Water Bottles You Can Eat Fortunately, ...more
One feature of Samsung devices that's less useful than I had expected is S Voice, the voice assistant that ships with all new Galaxy devices. The voice is annoying, the features are lacking, and it's an all around subpar product. With Google Now, Siri, and now Microsoft's Cort ...more
This year, like every year before it, Black Friday sales are starting earlier than ever. A lot of stores will be opening their doors as early as 5pm on Thanksgiving to get a head start on the madness (and it really is madness). As we've discussed in the past, one of the keys t ...more
Halloween is only a few short weeks away, and most people are scrambling to get their costumes together before the big night. The secret to a great getup is all in the details, and including your pet in the fun can be exactly what you need to take your costume to the next leve ...more
Unless you like paying exorbitant prices for out-of-contract phones, most of us are stuck with the one we already have for two or more years. The tech industry moves fast, and as new phones are released seemingly every month, your Samsung Galaxy S4 might start looking older by ...more
For new Android users, rooting an Android phone can often be an intimidating process, especially since there are so many different ways to gain root access, depending on your model and firmware version. I've previously covered a way of doing it for the AT&T version of the Sam ...more
Russians are well known for their knack at documenting exciting and horribly beautiful events on the go, from insane car accidents to attempted insurance fraud and even a superbolide meteor streaking across the sky. Videos like these aren't limited to just Russia—dashcams are ...more
The first film I saw without any parental supervision was Pokémon: The First Movie. At the time, there wasn't a 5th grader around who didn't know who Pikachu was or what Pokémon was all about. The franchise was one of the most popular video games of all time, right after Mario ...more
Over the past several weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of test driving Samsung’s next big thing, the Galaxy S4. After putting the GS4 through its paces, I have a clear picture of what this device is capable of. I’ve covered the features of the device before, and now I’ll tell you ...more
An average of 140,000 hard drives crash in the United States each week, according to online backup service Mozy. Additionally, 70 percent of Americans have lost a laptop, smartphone, or tablet, and the average person now loses 1.24 devices each year—less than half of which are ...more
Why is transferring contacts from an old smartphone to a new one still insanely difficult? I can check my bank account, upload a picture to Instagram, email someone across the globe, and check the weather forecast on my phone—all in under five minutes. So why does transferrin ...more
PRL, or Preferred Roaming List, basically tells your phone which towers to connect to first. Changing PRLs can improve reception and data speeds, and in some cases even give you access to corporate/test towers. Because PRLs only operate on CDMA networks, this method only appl ...more
One of the best things about the Samsung Galaxy S3 is the ability to modify the device in countless ways, as with any other Android device. A recent guide on adding softkeys to the GS3 from mod Faisal inspired me to share some information on how to edit build.prop, which is y ...more
Thanksgiving is pretty much the only day out of the year when you can be a complete fatass. It's totally expected, if not encouraged. In fact, if you aren't stuffing your face with a bunch of delicious and unhealthy food, people start to look at you funny. While turkey is the ...more
Phone in one pocket, wallet in the other? It's the classic combo guaranteed to give you more pocket bulge. But it's 2024. Half that stuff in your wallet is practically antique. It's time to finally ditch all the dead weight and get a MagSafe wallet for iPhone — and we've got t ...more
Google has a few hidden tools you might not have discovered yet, and they work in Google Search, in the Google app, and with Google Assistant — on both iPhone and Android phones. We all know smartphones do much more than make phone calls. They serve as cameras, GPS navigators ...more
With the holidays right around the corner, it's easy to miss a big software update on your iPhone, and by that, I mean iOS 15.2, which was pushed out Monday, Dec. 13. There's a surprising amount of new features and changes in the updated firmware, and there are a few big ones ...more
Ads aren't the only annoying part of navigating websites in Safari. Colorful banners, autoplaying videos, embedded objects, and other distracting elements can make it harder to read or watch what you want. Although ad blockers are one answer, they only get rid of advertisement ...more
On May 17, Apple announced that Lossless Audio playback for Apple Music was finally coming to subscribers in June. The long-awaited option will let users stream songs at a much higher quality than ever before. Still, in the fine print, Apple noted that you wouldn't be able to ...more
Strange or uncomfortable encounters can be difficult to get away from sometimes if you're overly polite and don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. Thankfully, your iPhone can help save the day, providing you with a plausible excuse to exit the scene without having to conjure u ...more
When compared to last year's model, the Pixel 4a has upgrades that go beyond the spec sheet. But since it's one generation old, 2019's Pixel 3a can be had for one hell of a discount right now, and it's still got two full years of software updates coming its way. So which one r ...more
Wearing masks and social distancing doesn't sound like a fun movie night with friends, but you can still be comfortable and watch films together remotely. Services like Discord and Netflix Party make it possible to watch movies simultaneously from different parts of the U.S., ...more
It feels like just yesterday Apple unveiled iOS 13 to the world, introducing game-changing features like system-wide dark mode and enhanced editing tools in Photos. But WWDC 2020 is rapidly approaching, which means iOS 14 is as well. As it turns out, we don't need to wait for ...more
Staying inside during the coronavirus pandemic isn't easy for most of us. As important as it is to keep away from others, it can be challenging to keep to ourselves day after day. That's why mobile game developers are stepping in to help; many are making their games free for a ...more
Are you thinking about upgrading your iPhone this year? Apple sure wants you to. Of course, that's no different than any other year, but Apple really wants you to upgrade this year. How do we know this? The rumors point to not three, not four, but five brand new iPhones in 202 ...more
It's easy to take your iPhone's Notification Center for granted. As useful as it is for viewing important alerts, reminders, and more, the feature is pretty drab when compared to the customizable Control Center, Accessibility Shortcuts, and others. Granted, viewing and intera ...more
If we were to assign a theme for the 2019 edition of the Next Reality 30 (NR30), it might be something along the lines of, "What have you done for me lately?" Many of the top names in the industry from the 2018 edition remain the same, but their positions have shuffled. The p ...more
Mobile gaming has exploded in recent years, with experts predicting 2.4 billion global mobile players by the end of 2019. It already accounts for 47% of the worldwide gaming market, besting console and PC. No wonder we've seen the rise of gaming smartphones, a class of phones ...more
We're basically living in the future, so let's work like we are. For decades, we have, without question, opened a word processor like Pages, and clicked or tapped our way to starting a new document. What's wrong with that? It's unnecessary. We all have a digital assistant livi ...more
It's easy to forget just how cool face filters are. Augmented reality has come a long way, and apps like Instagram now offer a suite of impressive effects to play with, but some of the best ones aren't easily found. There is a treasure trove of exclusive, custom face filters t ...more
After poor sales of the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL, Google needs to reinvigorate its Pixel lineup, devices it's been pushing heavily over the last couple years. On May 7, Google had the eyes and ears of the technology industry at its Google I/O keynote, making it the perfect time ...more
With all the controversy around the Pixel 3 XL, the regular-sized Pixel 3 might be the phone of choice for most users. Thanks to the huge boost in screen size, the little brother is now an easier pickup for those who like a bigger screen. And once more, the internals are the s ...more
If you're currently running macOS 10.11 or higher on your Mac and connect your iPhone to sync with iTunes, you may get an alert saying that "a software update is required to connect to your iPhone." Here's everything you need to know about what that means, how to update your s ...more
There are currently 27 available Animoji to choose from in iOS 13, but you're not limited to Apple's animated emoji characters — you can make your own. They're called Memoji, an available feature since iOS 12, and they're highly customizable. Think of Memoji avatars as person ...more
FaceTime has been around since iOS 4, and year after year, things stayed pretty much the same aside from a few small changes. In iOS 6, calls over cellular networks were finally possible, and audio-only calls were officially supported starting in iOS 7. But the one feature mos ...more
With over 1 billion downloads on the Play Store alone, Google Maps has become a staple for those traveling. Its popularity is the result of Google consistently improving its accuracy and adding new functionality. And this was only achieved with help of you — specifically, your ...more
There's an adage that says "Every plan, no matter how great, goes out the window as soon as you're punched in the face." While our lives are (hopefully) not violent, that saying can easily translate to our daily living. That punch in the face can come in various forms, mainly ...more
I've seen my fair share of heartbreaks when it comes to used phones. As a repair tech, I often had to try and help out customers who bought used handsets which turned out to be useless, either because it was stolen or not working on their carrier's network. More often than not ...more
Are we about to witness the future of Android OS? Of Google? Of the entire smartphone ecosystem?! Google has just turned 18 today (right?), Android just had its 8th birthday, and the rumor mill is firing on all cylinders in the lead-up to the October 4 launch event where they ...more
Good day to everyone, today I will present some basic and advanced concepts that targets sophisticated attacks on the social basis, also I will write about some steps that can prevent this attacks from occuring, basically we will examine Social Engineering from the angle of at ...more
Welcome back everyone! In the last training session we covered basic file input and output. We're going to leave this topic for a bit and start on something that will change the way we write scripts, classes. A class is basically an object. It's something that we can make att ...more
Of course, if it were a perfect form of currency, it would have become the standard by now. But it hasn't. Wanna know why? The story begins with the advent of agriculture, when humans had settled down under groups as units called villages, over 10,000 years ago. That's when t ...more
Amazon is slowly trying to gain as much influence in the tech world as it has in the consumer market, and with the Amazon Fire HD 7, they have their eyes set on taking on the "budget tablet" space. For the amount of money you spend on the Fire HD 7, you get a pretty decent ta ...more
It's almost time for Halloween, which means that it's time for the nastiest-looking food and drink to make its appearance. Severed fingers, brains, vomit... everything that would normally make our stomachs turn at any other time of year makes us cackle with glee instead on Hal ...more
Microsoft's new voice-enabled virtual assistant, Cortana, is a lot like a blend of Siri's personality and Google Now's predictive capabilities—but the best part is it's baked right into the taskbar in Windows 10. Cortana requires a bit of initial setup, which I'll go over in ...more
Each flavor of sake, the national spirit of Japan, comes with its own fans, not unlike whiskey aficionados here in the States. While sake is often called "rice wine," it is more akin to a malted beverage like beer. Unfortunately, many people's first exposure to sake comes in ...more
Apple's newest mobile operating system, iOS 8, is out for the general public, and we've got a rundown on the best new features you can use on your iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. While there's not a huge visual change as there was from iOS 6 to iOS 7, there's still plenty of coo ...more
If you're anything like me, you started down the Android-modding path for two distinct reasons; to run cutting-edge software and squeeze every bit of performance out of your hardware. Utilizing the new F2FS file system on your rooted Nexus 4 or 5 fulfills both of those desires ...more
As the largest wireless service providers in the United States, AT&T and Verizon Wireless carry some serious clout. Sadly, they use some of this power to heavily modify the Android phones that they offer. While smaller carriers like Sprint or T-Mobile are happy to just have t ...more