Many people get so discouraged by their failures with redstone that they give up using it entirely, or never progress beyond using simple switches. However, by incorporating logic gates into your redstone designs, the applications are nearly limitless. The ability to add multi ...more
Most of us lead busy, work-filled lives, often clocking in a 9-to-5 five days a week. And when that clock signifies the hour to leave, the last thing on anyone's mind is: "Time to go to the grocery store to pick up more fresh produce!" (Well, to be fair... maybe more people ar ...more
In this series, I'll be exploring electromagnetic weapons, how to build them, their function and application to the future, and the amazing possibilities electromagnetism has to offer. First, the electromagnetic pulse generator, or EMP. You've probably heard of these before, a ...more
Android 9.0 Pie moved the status bar clock from the right corner to the left to accommodate phones with notches, but there's one major downside for Samsung users: since no Galaxy phones have a notch, all this did was take away space for the notification icons that would otherw ...more
On the surface, Instagram is pretty intuitive, so you might think that you already know everything there is to know about using it on your iPhone or Android phone. But this photo and video-sharing app is constantly adding new features, some of which don't make the press releas ...more
Samsung's latest flagship devices—the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge—both sport an interesting new feature called Always On Display, or simply AOD. When enabled, this feature keeps the clock, date, and other bits of information visible at all times—even when the screen is off. Samsung ...more
Some phone lines make it nearly impossible to get past the busy tone, whether it's a viral call-in giveaway, your state's unemployment office, your local post office during the holidays, or the repair office for a broken warrantied product you have. Thankfully, there are apps ...more
Your iPhone's new home screen widgets are awesome — until they're not. Photos, in particular, is a big disappointment. It gives you a taste of having your favorite photos appear alongside your apps but ruins it by changing the photo randomly every hour without your input. Whil ...more
For most Android phones, the system clock is set using a protocol called NITZ, which relies on a connection with your carrier to ensure that the time stays in sync. The trouble here is that this feature won't work when you're outside of cellular range, and a lot of times, the ...more
These days, most of the hardware components in smartphones evolve at a breakneck pace. Batteries gain capacity while decreasing in size, displays continue to get sharper as graphics rendering steadily improves, and processors clock higher speeds at every generation. Audio qua ...more
Apple is set to release its latest operating system for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch this fall, and if you haven't noticed yet from our iOS 7 softModder guides, it's going to be pretty slick. Gone are the boring old icons that have remained basically unchanged since the very ...more
Tony Stark is a smooth talking, genius billionaire playboy that occasionally saves the world... what's not to like? The Marvel films starring Robert Downey, Jr. have grossed well over a billion dollars in the U.S. alone, so it's needless to say that Iron Man is a very popular ...more
Apple's iOS 13 has been available for beta testing since June, and the stable release pushed out to everyone on Thursday, Sept. 19. To help you make the most out of iOS 13 for iPhone, we've rounded up everything you'll want to know, whether a colossal feature, small settings c ...more
If the Nexus 7 wasn't your first Android tablet, you may have noticed something different with the user interface when compared to other Jelly Bean tablets. You may not know exactly what it is off the top of your head, but it's there. Phone mode. Yep, your Nexus 7 utilizes t ...more
Safari has a helpful feature that shows your most frequently visited webpages whenever you open a new tab or window, but it's not for everyone. If you never use it, would rather have a minimalist start page, or want to prevent other people with access to Safari on your iPhone, ...more
Beginning with KitKat, I've been used to customizing every aspect of my Android phone, but with the release of Lollipop, there is quite a bit of catching up that developers need to do. Most customization features, like quick settings rearrangement and theme support have alread ...more
Every time Apple releases a new version of their mobile operating system, it comes packed with an assortment of bugs, issues, and other hindrances. When they released iOS 6, there were major Wi-Fi issues, App Store problems, battery drains, Passbook bugs, and lock screen expl ...more
Developers options is one of the first things tinkerers unlock on a new phone. However, even the less tech-savvy users will find some benefits to revealing this hidden menu, as it enables features such as GPS spoofing and faster animations. By default, this menu is hidden awa ...more
The older I get, the more my Friday nights involve watching Netflix at home with a bottle of Maker's Mark and a box of Oreos. Netflix is a big part of my life, and I'm not alone. YouTube and Netflix make up over 50% of all activity on the Internet, so it might be worth your ti ...more
Despite Android's flexibility in regards to customization, the options available in stock Android are pretty barebones. It is only with the help of third-party apps that we can entirely transform sections of the UI to our liking. And thanks to a new app, we can modify another ...more
In mid-2017, Instagram added the ability to archive posts you've previously shared so that only you could see them going forward. As easy as it is to archive one of your Instagram photos or videos, it can be just as easy to forget how to unarchive it so others can see it again ...more
HTC's Sense UI is generally regarded as one of the best manufacturer-skinned versions of Android. This is mainly due to the subtle and classy styling of the interface, as well as some unique features that are added in here and there. One of the most central features of Sense ...more
The Android 9 Pie update brought a lot of visual changes, some of which are a little too reminiscent of iOS. There's the new gesture controls, which are okay, but then there are things like a left-justified clock and the fact that the recent apps menu now scrolls horizontally ...more
If you lose your AirPods, AirPods Pro, or AirPods Max, you can turn to Find My to locate them. But sometimes, things don't go according to plan, and many things can go wrong. For example: Nothing happens whenever you try to play a sound through your AirPods. Their location wo ...more
One of the best things about Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy is how realistic he makes the caped crusader feel. Unlike the Joel Schumacher or even the Tim Burton versions, Nolan's world seems grounded in some level of scientific fact. But just how close is science to actual ...more
I hate waiting to play, and I hate bugging my Facebook friends even more. But that's what Candy Crush Saga makes you do if you want to get new lives and levels faster. Luckily, you don't have follow King's rules—you can use a simple time hack to get new lives and play locked ...more
Want to make boring old colorless water brighten up on command? Well, you can control the color of water with this little magic trick. Actually, it's not really magic, but a classic science experiment known commonly as the iodine clock reaction, which uses the reactions betwee ...more
By now, you've probably already installed 10.10 Yosemite, the newest version of Mac OS X, on your computer. While you most certainly noticed the visual changes, you might have missed some of the really cool additions. We've spent the last few days getting to know it, and let ...more
When shopping for a new smartphone, you'll encounter comparisons and spec sheets that are filled to the brim with values like mAh, GB, and GHz. To the average consumer, however, these values are meaningless, so we end up looking at which device has the specs with the highest a ...more
As familiar as it may look at first glance, there are still tons of subtle changes in Windows 10. Many options that existed in past versions have been moved, and virtually every system menu received at least a small visual makeover. Take the system tray for an example. It's s ...more
We've gathered some of our favorite pranks with the seasonally appropriate for all you college kids out there. You're more than likely cohabitating with a complete stranger, and what better way to make a good first impression and develop a strong personal relationship than sub ...more
Out of all the myths about the iPhone's battery, one that's very true is that charging your phone overnight is bad news. Keeping the charge level at 100% puts the battery under strain, which can permanently damage it. Apple took steps to address the issue in iOS 13, where your ...more
When you think of Terminal, you probably imagine some hacker sitting in front of their computer in a dimly lit room trying to break into an FBI database. In reality, it's just a simple tool that can make using your Mac much easier. Now, I'm not saying that learning Terminal c ...more
When Google released Android 4.2, a new feature was introduced for tablets that allowed for multiple accounts to be used on a single device. In order to create a unique experience for each user, apps and personal data were kept separate, and switching between users became as s ...more
Although the Clock app in iOS has undergone some design changes over the years, you still can't set more than one timer on your iPhone. Oddly enough, Apple's own HomePod speaker added this feature, mimicking the timer on Amazon's popular Echo smart speakers. Fortunately, throu ...more
In late-2017, Instagram rolled out a feature that automatically saves your ephemeral Stories to a private archive. Before that, Stories disappeared into the ether after 24 hours, but not everyone was comfortable losing these precious photos and videos. If you post to Instagram ...more
Modern versions of Windows have revamped the lock screen to make it a lot more useful. If you're coming from Windows 7 and older versions of the OS, this lock screen is both new and useful (though you can turn it off if you just don't want it). Don't Miss: Everything You Need ...more
There's nothing more jarring than the sound of your morning alarm. Even hearing it on others' phones, hours after your own abrupt wakeup, can cause you to flinch in fear. Though we depend on that shrill sound to get up each morning, it's actually better to wake up naturally—so ...more
Home screen widgets come in various sizes in iOS 14, and which size you choose will depend on how much content or data you actually want to see. But what happens when you picked the wrong widget size? In a perfect world, you would just edit the current widget's settings, but A ...more
By now, everybody knows that overcharging a battery will reduce its overall life span. This is why many smartphone manufacturers recommend that you charge your device to 100%, then unplug it immediately. Some even go so far as to automatically stop charging when the device is ...more
Samsung kicked off their Android Oreo rollout earlier this week. The update already improved the lock screen significantly with new wallpaper color-matching for the clock. With the newest update, we also get the ability to tweak the transparency of lock screen notifications. ...more
Every time Windows gets a significant update, the vast majority of existing tweaking utilities become obsolete. For every option that you fine-tuned with one of these tools on Windows 7 or 8, there's a change in the registry or system settings that cause your tweaks to now poi ...more
In our first part on software-defined radio and signals intelligence, we learned how to set up a radio listening station to find and decode hidden radio signals — just like the hackers who triggered the emergency siren system in Dallas, Texas, probably did. Now that we can hea ...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
Twitter is a science. The smarter you post and engage with others, the better chance you have at building a bigger audience. Scheduling your tweets is one way to get there. Most engagement occurs at specific hours, but you may not be around then to post your tweet manually. Wh ...more
Over the years, we've seen security breach after security breach, as well as high-profile data scandals where collected personal information was misused by companies. Apple makes customer privacy a priority, so there have been few issues to worry about when it comes to its ser ...more
Apple released the iOS 11.2 update for the iPhone to the masses early morning on Dec. 2, and here are all the new features and important bug fixes you need to know about. Of the new features, two of them are ones we thought we'd get when iOS 11 was first released. However, th ...more
It may not seem like it, but the Status bar at the top of your Samsung Galaxy Note 2 is one of the most important and heavily utilized features. From checking the time, to finding out your battery percentage, to viewing Wi-Fi and cellular connections, the Status bar is critica ...more
The volume buttons on the side of your iPhone can do more than just adjust the volume levels for media, ringers, alerts, Siri, and other sounds and voices. You can use them to perform different actions in certain apps and even create custom actions using the Shortcuts app. It' ...more
The new iOS 14 for iPhone arrived Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2020, alongside iPadOS 14, and there are a lot of features to uncover. Improved widgets. Better home screen customization. Exciting Messages improvements. New abilities in Camera and Photos. There's so much here that it'll ...more
The new iPhone 12 Pro Max is equipped with MagSafe, the iPhone 12 lineup's most talked-about feature. While Apple previously used MagSafe for its magnetic charging connectors on older MacBook models, it's given new life to it on the iPhone, and in a much better way. But can it ...more
You see the status bar nearly everywhere on your iPhone, and it almost always looks the same. But you can use a few tricks to spice things up a bit — without jailbreaking your iPhone. The status bar's background on iOS is transparent, so you'll see different colors and gradie ...more
When it comes to theming your Android device, it's the little things that matter most. Whether you're tweaking your navigation buttons or changing the color of system menus, no theme is complete until even the smallest element matches the rest of your color palette. As a stap ...more
The new OnePlus One packs a 3,100 mAh battery that promises to last all day and night. While that will work for most, some of us don't quite know how to put our phone down and save some juice. If you're looking to help your battery out and possibly squeeze an extra hour or tw ...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
One of the best aspects of Android is its customization options. You can change launchers and icons, add widgets, and replace standard apps with others that allow full customization. Android allows your device to really take on your personality, from the inside and out. Stock ...more
What time is it? It's a question that you'll find yourself asking a million more times throughout your life, but one that hardly goes unanswered. When you're on your phone or at your desktop, there is almost always some type of clock available to immediately give you the time ...more
As an Android user, there aren't many elements of my friend's iPhone that I find myself envious of, because anything he can do on iOS, I can surely find a way to do on Android...often better. That being said, I have to admit that one feature I do like is the minimal style and ...more
Rooting your Samsung Galaxy S4 has many advantages; theming, free wireless hotspots, deleting system apps, and generally being ahead of the curve when it comes to updates. It's also great for simple things like centering your clock or freezing apps. Today, I'm going to cover ...more
Apple just released its biggest update to iOS 17 yet, and there are 60 exciting new changes for your iPhone. With iOS 17.2, you get a brand new app, more Apple Music enhancements, upgrades in Messages, and a new security feature that was announced last year, as well as changes ...more