Make Real Proton Pack

Last week, augmented reality startup Proxy42 released Father.IO, a multiplayer game that turns any indoor or outdoor space into a laser tag arena. A $40 Bluetooth-connected, infrared sensor-equipped device called the Interceptor converts your standard iPhone or Android smartp ...more

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is the de facto wireless protocol choice by many wearables developers, and much of the emerging internet of things (IoT) market. Thanks to it's near ubiquity in modern smartphones, tablets, and computers, BLE represents a large and frequently insecur ...more

At Build 2017, the annual developer's conference, Microsoft featured a Windows Mixed Reality Academy. This class was designed to get a developer started creating Mixed Reality experiences quickly. For those of us already developing for the Microsoft HoloLens, while the class — ...more

I think I hate this game. I don't really see how you can play more than 15 minutes of Tap Mania without smashing your head into a wall. You do nothing but tap. Tap, tap, tap. At least they got the name right. My editor asked me "would you enjoy this game more if you followed ...more

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 (or Galaxy Note8, depending on how you like it) is one phone which couldn't possibly have bigger shoes to fill. Samsung's latest flagship has officially been announced, so it's time to decide whether not it's capable of filing the void left by the fai ...more

All day I dream of eggs: scrambled, poached, over easy, hard-boiled, fried, baked, raw... Okay, the last one is a joke (unless you're Gaston, which means that you eat five dozen of them and you're roughly the size of a barge). But eggs are freaking good in just about any cooki ...more

For years, smartphone makers have been caught up in a megapixel spec race to prove that their camera is better than the next guy's. But we've finally come to a point where even the lower-end camera phones are packing more megapixels than they need, so it's getting harder to di ...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

So you're finally ready to head out on that big trip you've been planning for months, huh? It's an exciting time, but there are plenty of things you'll need to prepare before you head out. For instance, it's hard to imagine life without a smartphone these days, and with useful ...more

I've been involved in the Android scene for a very long time and have grown to develop a love/hate relationship with CyanogenMod. While I do like the stability they offer in their custom ROMs, they don't always include the flashy features on top of their vanilla Android base. ...more

Spotlight, Apple's selection-based search system, received a major facelift on Mac OS X Yosemite. Packed with dozens of new features, such as a central search window and increased app suggestions, the reworked Spotlight was a breath of fresh air. While the Spotlight Search to ...more

We've all been there; waking up in the morning with a stiff, achy back. Maybe you overdid the yard work this weekend. Perhaps you were a bit too enthusiastic on the Nautilus circuit. Could be the long hours spent hunched over your computer are catching up with you. Perhaps you ...more

Hard as it is to imagine, there are people out there who loathe garlic and onions. Some might have allergies or medical conditions like IBS, or are supertasters (i.e. people who carry a certain gene that makes them extremely sensitive to how certain foods taste). Others might ...more

Welcome back, my tenderfoot hackers! I have written many tutorials on hacking using Metasploit, including leaving no evidence behind and exploring the inner architecture. Also, there are my Metasploit cheat sheets for commands and hacking scripts. With this guide, I'm starti ...more

Foodies and big-time chefs like Thomas Keller go crazy for fleur de sel. This finishing salt appears in fancy eateries and cookbooks the world over, and in the early 2000s, it was not uncommon to see diners in a high-end restaurant sprinkle a pinch of fleur de sel on their pla ...more

Chances are that you've been using your microwave just to nuke leftovers, but they can do so much more than heat up last night's dinner—microwaves can help you peel garlic more quickly, get more juice out of lemons, disinfect your kitchen, dry out herbs, give beauty products n ...more

Apple's grand reveal of iOS 8 at WWDC in San Francisco is still a few days away, but that doesn't mean there isn't any speculation as to what features and enhancements might come packed in the new mobile operating system. With iOS 7's complete UI overhaul not even a year old, ...more

Last week, I showed you why your refrigerator is one of the best tools in the kitchen when it comes to saving money and preserving food at its tastiest. But did you know your freezer is another underutilized ally in the cooking game? Chances are, you've been using your freeze ...more

Living in Los Angeles has given me the opportunity to attend a bunch of really cool events. I've been to Dodgers, Lakers, and Clippers games, a few concerts at the Staples Center, and a plethora of smaller joints. In all of these places, I've found a consistent annoyance—I wa ...more

The best part about April Fool's Day is that everyone is fair game. Even big tech companies like Google and Twitter get in on the action every year. It encourages even the most uptight, unfunny party-poopers among us to have a little fun driving each other crazy with pranks — ...more

The App Store has been around for almost 14 years now, and during that time, we must have seen over a million games come and go and stay and expand. But only a tiny fraction of those games have become blockbuster sensations because of the mighty App Store's reach on iPhone and ...more

Your iPhone's Control Center is your main hub for quick access to controls like brightness, volume, Wi-Fi, and Do Not Disturb, but if you're using iOS 14, there may be a bunch of screen real estate taken up by blank squares. If that wasted space is bothering you every time you ...more

A modern iPhone is capable of running sophisticated, exquisitely-rendered games that rival titles on current-generation consoles. However, there is some value in classic video game titles, whether you grew up playing games on the Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System, and ...more

UPDATE: The OnePlus 8 Pro has been released! Check it out on the official OnePlus website or read through the rumored specs we've left below for posterity. Even though OnePlus no longer uses the motto, they still embody the spirit of "Flagship Killer." OnePlus is known for of ...more

Apple's next big developer event happened on June 4, and it was the first glimpse of iOS 12 that anyone's seen. While there were lots of rumored features to be unveiled at WWDC 2018, Apple concentrated mostly on squashing bugs and making iOS work as seamless as it did years ag ...more

If you want to follow Null Byte tutorials and try out Kali Linux, the Raspberry Pi is a perfect way to start. In 2018, the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ was released featuring a better CPU, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Ethernet built in. Our recommended Kali Pi kit for beginners learning e ...more

Believe it or not, there are a variety of ways to customize app icons in iOS. While iOS 12 made gave us an unofficial built-in way to do it, and iOS 13 improved it, and iOS 14 made it the best it could possibly be, there's still another option if you don't like using the Short ...more

Kali Linux is the obvious first choice of an operating system for most new hackers, coming bundled with a curated collection of tools organized into easy-to-navigate menus and a live boot option that is very newbie-friendly. But Kali isn't the only distribution targeted at pen ...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

The oven is arguably our most essential kitchen appliance (right alongside the fridge, freezer, and yes, even the microwave). But even though we've been using them for a few millennia, many of us know so little about our ovens that our cooking or baking can feel like a roll of ...more

What started as an accessibility setting for hearing aids turned out to be a super helpful tool for anyone with a good set of Bluetooth headphones. The problem is that most iPhone and iPad users still don't know about it. If you're one of them, you need to see what this underr ...more

Whenever you're on a FaceTime call, you can use SharePlay on your iPhone or iPad to screen share, watch TV or movies together, work out with each other, and even listen to the same music at the same time. SharePlay also recently received a new skill that turns FaceTime into a ...more

Apple's latest big software update includes an entirely new Apple app, a controversial change in the TV app, better Siri control, an improved Shortcuts app, interesting Safari upgrades, Apple Music Sing, and more. Keep reading to see what iOS 16.2 has to offer your iPhone. Th ...more

After the dust settled from Apple's annual iPhone event, there's not a lot to get hyped up about the iPhone 13 lineup, particularly if you upgraded your smartphone last year. Sure, the iPhone 13, along with the premium Pro and Pro Max and the pint-sized Mini variants, get spe ...more

The year leading into fall is turning out to be packed with a flurry of augmented reality activity. Most notably, TikTok is adding another major weapon to its AR arsenal. Also on deck are the powers of Hollywood horror in the form of an innovative approach to AR marketing that ...more

The Fourth of July, the celebration of US independence, as well as the second paid holiday of the summer, has arrived. If you're vaccinated, you're probably planning to commemorate the occasion much differently than last year. However, if you're still playing it safe, you can ...more

Why are there no official Star Wars emoji in the Unicode Standard? We've got the "Vulcan Salute" from Star Trek, so where's the force choke hand gesture?! While you may never see Star Wars officially invade your emoji keyboard, there are ways to send Star Wars emoji and sticke ...more

The economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have been felt in practically every business sector. Now, as we look back at the top augmented reality investments of 2020, the AR industry has been no exception. While the overall dollar value of this year's top 10 investments wa ...more

Every year, Apple adds some old technology to the iPhone and gives it a catchy marketing name, then like clockwork, it becomes the next big thing. Google, on the other hand, creates some truly innovative features, doesn't really bother naming them, then lets them languish in o ...more

Apps can learn a lot about you just by reading information about your smartphone. They can easily track what device model you have, your phone number, and in some cases, your hardware MAC addresses. Many third-party apps will only track your device values for advertising purpo ...more

The Home button on an iPhone does a lot. That's not necessarily news for anyone who's ever owned an iPhone with a Home button, but what you might not know is that it's capable of so much beyond the standard everyday functions. So if you have an iPhone 7, 8, or the new SE model ...more

While hackers know and love the Raspberry Pi, many don't know of its cheaper cousin, the microcontroller. Unlike a Pi, which can be used more or less like a regular computer, microcontrollers like the Wi-Fi connected ESP8266 require some necessary programming skill to master. ...more

There have been concerns with how much personal information Google tracks and all the things they know about us. Of course, that's what makes Google services so useful, they can use that information to cater to each of us individually. So yes, it serves a purpose, but it's not ...more

In this jam-packed October, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro has flown under the radar in the US. Due to Huawei's lack of presence in the States, many are unfamiliar with the second largest OEM in the world. Huawei has continuously put out amazing mobile devices, and this year they rele ...more

The iPhone XR has touched down alongside the XS and XS Max, and it utilizes tried and tested materials found on the iPhone 8, while being molded in the same vein as the iPhone X. The budget-friendlier flagship comes with its own set of design elements to set it apart from its ...more

Whether you're in high school or college, you no doubt will have your iPhone in your pocket all day long. To make your iPhone last the whole time and even help you out with your studies, these are the accessories you'll want to get your hands on. You might not think you need ...more

Defcon is the largest hacker conference with something for everyone, whether it be the talks, parties, villages, or any of the hundreds of events. In this guide, we'll take a holistic view at everything that goes into attending the con for the first time, from securing your el ...more

For all those times when an app either isn't available or simply won't cut it, your phone's internet browser provides access to your favorite websites and services. But some browsers are flat-out better than others, and chances are, the browser that came pre-installed on your ...more

A vending machine is an invaluable yet totally frustrating piece of equipment. It's a godsend whenever your tummy's growling or you need an ice-cold drink on a hot summer day. But when something gets stuck inside or the machine flat-out malfunctions, it quickly becomes your ar ...more

Thought I would cross-post a piece I did a while ago. So here is a piece I made a while back. I found this brass and glass bottle at the thrift store. At the time of purchase it had a broken music box on the bottom. I actually was able to fix the music box and it plays "How D ...more

In these times of social distancing, video calling is becoming the technological substitute for face-to-face connections. For those who carry an iPhone, the art of video calling defaults to FaceTime, the native app on iOS that is exclusive to Apple devices. But what do you do ...more

With just two microcontrollers soldered together, you can inject keystrokes into a computer from a smartphone. After building and programming the device, you plug it into a desktop or laptop, access it over a smartphone, and inject keystrokes as you would with a USB Rubber Duc ...more

If you've spotted an unintended Ethernet connection and wondered what you could do with all of the information coursing through those wires, there's an easy way to hack into it and find out. Let's say there's a router that we need to know the password for, and we have physica ...more

Once the laughing-stock of the navigation app market, Apple Maps is now a powerful, reliable travel companion. Apple rebuilt the platform from the ground up, placing the app in league with Google Maps. That said, there's always room for improvement, as demonstrated by its impr ...more

In a time where we're more connected than ever, privacy and security have never been more important. Maybe you're not concerned, but I'm sure there's someone in your life who is, and shopping for them can be daunting. However, with these gifts, you can provide them the tools t ...more

Smartphones are vital travel companions. While you're on the go, they connect you with loved ones back home, help you find tickets and passes for tourist attractions, and make it easy to find your way through foreign roads — but even the most powerful smartphone could use help ...more

Trying to figure out which music streaming service to subscribe to can be a difficult task when the playing field is so crowded. Each has its benefits, as well as downsides, so finding the right one for your needs and wants can take a lot of overwhelming research. But we've do ...more

Signal is one of the best end-to-end encrypted messengers on the market. It offers robust security, keeps minimal information about its users, and is free to use. Switching to it as your main messenger can be a bit daunting, so to help, we created a guide to walk you through t ...more

When you want a helpful task manager on your iPhone or iPad, any of the nine apps in this guide should be at the top of your list. But we'll review each app's features to help you determine which one might be best for your workflow. Using a task manager on your iPhone or iPad ...more