From its official launch back in September, iOS 11 has been equal parts revered as it has been criticized. Even with all the great, new features we've come to expect from a major iOS update, plenty of bugs and glitches have forced users to overlook the positives. Perhaps that ...more
For parents that have an iPhone X, things are about to get a lot easier for you in iOS 11.3, which finally lets you approve app and media downloads on your child's iPhone using Face ID instead of typing in a password. You can ban certain apps and movies, as well as in-app pur ...more
Now that we finally have vertical plane recognition in ARKit (at least on a developer level until the spring iOS 11.3 release), the real promise of mobile augmented reality is beginning to come into focus on iOS. But a new report indicates that a major near future advancement ...more
Every dollar that comes your way is a blessing, especially when it comes to trading in the volatile world of bitcoins. Thankfully, Coinbase rewards you for sending much valued customers their way, giving you more money to feed your cryptocurrency trading needs. Coinbase has a ...more
Stop me if you've heard this one before: scan an image with your iPhone's camera and augmented reality content shows up. This idea probably has you thinking about Snapchat and its Snapcodes. Or maybe you're thinking of Blippar, Zappar, or countless other marker-based AR exper ...more
While it may seem to some like investors are just throwing their money at augmented reality companies simply because the tech is heavily hyped, these money managers do actually want to see a return on their investments. That's probably at least part of the reason Sketchfab ha ...more
Google, Facebook, and Huawei have made an investment in nurturing the future of augmented and virtual reality through $6 million in contributions to the opening of a new center at the University of Washington. The UW Reality Lab at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science ...more
Binance, a China-based cryptocurrency exchange, is rapidly gaining popularity thanks to the sheer selection of digital currencies you can purchase — Ripple (XRP), Tron (TRX), IOTA, and Stellar (XLM), to name a few — using both Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). Binance has an i ...more
Instagram stories are a great way to share your day-to-day experiences with your followers. However, it can be disappointing to see them go after 24 hours, especially if you shared something really special. Now, Instagram has a way for you and your followers to relive those gr ...more
With Google's release of Poly API on Thursday, the search giant has found a way to simplify the workflow for AR creators by enabling the ability to integrate its 3D object search engine Poly directly into an application. While services like Turbosquid and Sketchfab, websites ...more
Between Renault Truck's testing of the HoloLens in factories and BMW promoting its newest model through Snapchat, the auto industry is hot for augmented reality to improve internal operations and engage consumers. Meanwhile, though Apple has made its initial play for AR with ...more
To the best of my recollection, Fruit Ninja was one of the first touchscreen games that appeared to really take advantage of the new paradigm of user input, turning the player's finger into a produce-slicing katana. At first blush, the latest title from Halfbrick Studios, mak ...more
Have you ever wanted the perfect radio station for an artist, genre, or even one to match your mood? Luckily, Google Play Music has an extensive radio feature that takes you exactly where you and your friends want to go for a quiet brunch, or a neighbors-banging-on-the-walls d ...more
The Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL were built by different manufacturers. This is pretty common knowledge among Android fans at this point — Google's smaller Pixel 2 was built by HTC, while the larger Pixel 2 XL was built by LG. What would the Pixel 2 XL look like if HTC had followed ...more
With technology giants like Apple and Google finally entering the fray, the move toward mass adoption of augmented reality is ramping up. Apple's ARKit and Google's ARCore will allow entirely new categories of apps to be made. Unfortunately, in a world of heavy competition, ge ...more
As if Amazon didn't already make it easier to buy things from home than in a store, the company has now given shoppers yet another reason to avoid the holiday rush with an ARKit update to its iPhone app. While Amazon may have lagged behind IKEA in arriving to the ARKit party, ...more
If you're following the classic Halloween playbook closely, you've already got a costume or three picked out, you've binged-watched your favorite horror movies, and you've likely visited a haunted house. But it's 2017, so how about trying something new, like a haunted house th ...more
So, it's Halloween time, and you feel like playing around with some augmented reality apps? Well, you've come to the right place — if you have an iOS device. Sure, you could load up some Halloween-themed filters on Snapchat (like the new lens sponsored by Stranger Things 2) a ...more
A development duo has concocted an iPhone app that displays related tweets based on objects recognized by the device's camera. Or Fleisher and Anastasis Germanidis compiled the experiment, dubbed Twit.AR, using Apple's CoreML machine learning platform and Google's Inception v ...more
A Russian augmented reality startup wants the next frontier in real estate to be augmented reality estate. Arcona, a blockchain-based augmented reality platform proposed by Piligrim XXI, maps out a grid of "Digital Land" over real locations across the world where digital cont ...more
We may not know what Magic Leap's product looks like. And we haven't received even a "save the date" for its launch. But we know that it will display mixed reality comics from Madefire when whatever it is arrives. Announced as part of the Future of Comics in New Realities pan ...more
Playlists are a vital feature for any music streaming service. For many, the ability to add and organize songs into the perfect order is a deciding factor in which streaming service to choose. The folks at Tidal (including owner Jay-Z) certainly recognize this, as they've prov ...more
The Free App of the Week is as cool as it sounds. Apple features one app every week on the front page of its App Store that comes completely free. Once you download it, you have access to all future updates, just like you would if you purchased the app in full. Sounds great ri ...more
When most people first become aware of Kodi (formerly known as XBMC), they hear about its ability to stream illegal content. But the real Kodi community knows that it's much more than just a haven for pirated material — it's an all-in-one media player that addresses the majori ...more
The default look for Kodi is a menu that shows all of the possible media playback options available to the media player. From movies to radio, Kodi's main menu has an option to meet your needs. But everyone's needs are different, and sometimes we don't want all of these option ...more
In a classic case of one step forward, two steps back, Apple has eliminated the ability to use multiple iCloud accounts for FaceTime and Messages in iOS 11, meaning the primary Apple ID on the account is the only one allowed. As inconvenient as this omission is, there's still ...more
Whether you used it to remind yourself to buy a game or to store away that app recommendation that your friend begged you to download, the "Wish List" in the iOS App Store was a useful tool to keep track of new apps you might have wanted to install on your iPhone. But how can ...more
When Disney teased an augmented reality game called Star Wars: Jedi Challenges running on a headset from Lenovo, fans had more questions than Disney had answers. When? How much? Can I be a real Jedi? With official word today from Lenovo and Disney by way of IFA 2017 in Berlin ...more
While using end-to-end encryption may be enough security for most of your messages in Telegram, you can go a step beyond this by sending messages that disappear after an allotted amount of time. This prevents you from having to manually delete the message at a later time, so y ...more
When it comes to watching movies and TV shows in Amazon's Prime Video service on an iPhone, it's as simple as installing the Amazon Prime Video app, signing into it, then playing content. However, on an Android phone, it's a lot more complicated. While there is an Amazon Prim ...more
Sports gaming company ePlay Digital, Inc. is looking to capitalize on the fall launch of iOS 11 and ARKit with an augmented reality fantasy sports app. With ePlay GO, the company is borrowing a few pages out of Pokémon Go's playbook, with players finding virtual avatars of at ...more
Augmented reality can be used to fascinate and entertain, but it can be applied in the workplace. While companies on the entertainment end received their votes of confidence via funding, two companies working with enterprises demonstrated their worth by teaming up to pursue c ...more
Life is all about spending time together with loved ones, experiencing new places together to enjoy and create memorable moments. Luckily, Google has made it easier for us to rendezvous with friends and family at specific places by letting us broadcast our locations using Goog ...more
If you've accidentally turned on "Read Receipts" for all of your iMessages, there's an easy way to disable it so that no one knows when you're actually reading their incoming messages. You could also pick and choose which conversations can see that you've read their messages i ...more
At the end of June, Unity 2017.1, the newest version of the popular 3D development engine, went live. And with that release, it brought out some very cool new features like Timeline and Cinemachine, to name a few. Now, for those of us that develop with Unity and follow the bet ...more
This Fourth of July, stock up on hot dogs, ice cream, and smartphones. Yep, this Independence Day is a surprisingly good time to get your hands on the iPhone SE. If you're interested, head to your nearest Best Buy to check out this major deal. (Or wait for the iPhone 8 to come ...more
Reigns recently went on sale on the Google Play Store (sorry, iPhone users), and that inspired me to give it a go. I've wanted to try this one out for a while now, but the steep price tag kept me away. ($2.99 is a lot for me, okay?) Now that I've had some time with Reigns, I ...more
If you've ever seen me glued to my iPhone, huddled on the corner of the 23rd St subway station fidgeting with my stupid hot pink nails trying to Instagram Story, then now you are about to find out exactly what I've been doing. I've been hiding those tags, stickers, and locati ...more
Supercell's highly anticipated Brawl Stars has soft launched in Canada, with gamers worldwide salivating at the prospect of a full debut around the corner. Unbeknownst to many, this game can be played on your iPhone right now, regardless of where you live. As a testament to t ...more
Pokémon GO's augmented reality journey is continuing with Apple's newly announced ARKit. It's no surprise considering Pokémon GO is the largest mainstream augmented reality game, with 500 million downloads. Apple mentioned Pokémon GO specifically during WWDC event last week, ...more
We all know the internet isn't exactly a safe place. While plenty of its users are innocent and kind, you won't last long unless you treat every new screen name like a criminal (we're all this cynical while surfing the web, right?). Well, that cynicism is proven correct today, ...more
When Apple revamped the storage management system in iOS 11, it built in a feature that lets you free up space on your iPhone in a more efficient manner. The option allows you to remove an app while preserving its data and documents should you choose to reinstall it later — an ...more
People love sex. They don't love talking about the possible repercussions of sex. And with dating apps such as Tinder, Grindr, and Bumble paving new ways for strangers to talk and have casual hookups, people need to be able to more comfortably have a conversation about sexual ...more
In this Tuesday's Brief Reality report, there's a trio of stories from the healthcare world where augmented reality is helping out with surgical microscopes, asthma treatment, and other diagnostic and treatment tools. There's also something for all of you AR/VR storytellers ou ...more
Apple is notoriously private when it comes to perspective products, but the latest leak from their De Anza office in Cupertino suggests that a new augmented reality device could be coming to a store near you. Gizmodo has obtained documents which appear to confirm that the tec ...more
Jam City's Panda Pop was a great success that helped millions of users waste vast amounts of precious time with its bubble-popping panda cuddliness. Not wanting to mess with success, Jam City has now simply re-skinned the game to feature all the beloved characters from Charles ...more
As someone who grew up adamantly complaining every time my parents dared to turn on talk radio in the car, I can admit it's a bit weird that I have a love affair with podcasts. I can't help it! Even though podcasts are essentially the modern-day customizable talk radio, I choo ...more
Pinterest, a worldwide catalog of ideas shared by over 175 million users every month, is dominated by Android users, who are now the app's fastest growing group. Pinterest has since taken notice, and has started to incorporate handy home screen shortcuts for users with Android ...more
The Samsung Galaxy S8+ isn't yet available for consumers to buy, but that isn't stopping tech reviewers from discovering what the phone is capable of. Turns out, the S8+ has a good battery—just not as good as the iPhone 7 Plus. PhoneArena released the results of their battery ...more
Apple has yet to create a successful social networking app, but that doesn't mean they want to be left out of the social video conversation. Case in point: Today they announced a new video app set to debut for iOS in April called Clips. Clips is separate from the core Camera ...more
Google Maps beta version 9.49 now allows users to manually save their parking location, and includes weather forecasts in mass transit, according to Android Police. There's also a notification toggle for mass transit station notifications. Here's a breakdown of the new featur ...more
DayZ is a first-person shooter game for Windows that places you in a vast post-apocalyptic world filled with zombies and other players that are all out to get you. Famous for its realism, DayZ has garnered a cult following and influenced many subsequent games in the genre. But ...more
This year's SXSW festival had a plethora of news and discussion about autonomous cars, but perhaps none was more exciting than the NIO EP9. The car was first shown off in November in London when it ran the Nürburgring Nordschleife track in record time. If that sounds unfamili ...more
Video chatting has become an important factor in the overall smartphone experience. Even just a few years ago, 37% of teens were making video calls on a regular basis, and that number has surely grown. 85% of households with infants have used video chat apps to call relatives ...more
Google's Pixel phones have a feature that lets you swipe down on the fingerprint scanner to open your notification shade and Quick Settings panel. It's one of those features that make you wonder why it wasn't there in the first place, since it gives you another way to interact ...more
Android Nougat has a new API that lets apps create their own custom Quick Settings tiles. A similar feature was buried in Android Marshmallow, but that required a hacky workaround, and most manufacturers disabled it in their custom versions of Android 6.0. But since this is an ...more
Emojis, for better or for worse, have essentially taken over online forms of communication. And now, thanks to a recently discovered feature in iOS, they are going to change the way you search for nearby places. The process is actually very simple. Let's say you're looking fo ...more
Since the days of flip clocks, alarms have always had one function—make a bunch of annoying racket early in the morning to ensure that you wake up in time. And this simple MO has stayed in place while technology advances at a breakneck pace, almost in spite of the fact that to ...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
Back in iOS 8.4, Apple introduce a new "heart" icon in their Music app, which works in direct correlation with their Apple Music service that was released at the same time. By hearting a song, you're telling Apple that you love that song, and they can make better suggestions f ...more