Give an 18-month-old a shoe, check back 10 minutes later, and it's a very big maybe he will have it on his foot. But give him your smartphone, and in a mere five minutes, he can take 100 pictures of the carpet, send weird messages, and delete essential apps. Imagine what your ...more
Last week, I tried out StackAR, a puzzle app updated to support ARKit where the AR features felt mostly unnecessary. On the other hand, PuzzlAR: World Tour, available on the App Store for $2.99, demonstrates how a puzzle game should be played in AR. The objective of the game ...more
Placing widgets on your device's home screen is a quick way to gain instant access to shortcuts or to specific aspects of an app, like music controls or weather forecasts. As more and more developers create various types of app drawers and shortcuts, many overlook widgets and ...more
It wasn't that long ago that we started seeing a variety of beers catering to the Steampunk crowd, so why not some wine? I was at home last night, minding my own business, when one of our friends brought over a bottle of wine that practically screamed "Steampunk!" I mean, I s ...more
The Shortcuts app can help you play the next unlistened podcast from one of the shows, but getting the latest unplayed episodes from your whole queue of shows in the Podcasts app is a little trickier. There is an easy way to do it on your iPhone, though, and you can even autom ...more
The two primary design paradigms in Samsung's One UI Android skin are vertical padding and rounded UI elements. The extra empty space at the top of most menus moves touchable elements closer to your thumb, and the rounded UI elements match the curved corners of modern smartpho ...more
Apple just seeded the fourth public beta for iOS 13 to software testers today, Tuesday, July 30. AppleSeed participants saw this beta one day early, alongside the release of developer beta 5. Now, developer and public testers alike are up-to-speed with the latest in iOS 13. B ...more
Apple's scheduled to show off the first look of iOS 13 at WWDC 2019 on June 3, but what will the new operating system hold for iPhone? Rumors suggest that many features initially planned for iOS 12 will show up in iOS 13, codenamed "Yukon," and dark mode will be the big ticket ...more
Dating websites allow you to see a person in a very intimate context, framing their successes and accomplishments in life to an important audience. The information contained in these profiles often can't be found elsewhere, offering a unique look into the personal life of the ...more
Night mode, which helps you snap great photographs in low-light environments, is a feature available only on the iPhone 11 and iPhone 12 lineups. It's a useful tool to have in your arsenal, especially if you're fond of nightlife photography. Still, you don't have to purchase a ...more
Phone specs get better and better each year, and multiplayer mobile games are right there with them. Instead of playing solo, jump into some real-time gameplay with co-op and player vs. player modes, and battle friends, family, and strangers from around the world. But which mu ...more
Beta testing for Apple's big upcoming iPhone update, iOS 13, is well underway. So far, each of the four beta versions we've seen brought new features and changes to the table, many of which were never even mentioned by Apple during WWDC in June. Now, it's time to do it all ove ...more
If you want to get started sniffing Wi-Fi networks, you usually need to start with a wireless network adapter. But thanks to a Wi-Fi sniffing library written in Arduino and the ultra-cheap ESP8266 chip, you might not need one. For less than $10 in electronics, you can build a ...more
Apple Watch owners know the struggle — it's the end of the day, and those rings aren't met. Whether you forgot your watch before hitting the gym, let the battery run out, or just didn't move enough, you could feel the sting of fitness failure. But it doesn't have to be this wa ...more
One of the best parts of being an Android user is the countless awesome features. Many of these features are well-known and user-facing, like custom icon packs and launchers, but some get lost in the shuffle. Back at Google I/O 2016, Android Instant Apps were introduced to dev ...more
Twitter is a hotbed for abusive accounts. Because it's such an open app, strangers from all over the world can see your tweets. Obviously, not everyone agrees on everything, but sometimes things can escalate to the point where it's considered harassment from people you don't e ...more
Black Mirror, Netflix's technology-horror anthology, never fails to provide thought-provoking entertainment centered around emerging and futuristic technologies, and the third season's second episode, "Playtest," delves deep into the worlds of mixed, augmented, and virtual rea ...more
There are so many great apps in the Google Play Store that it's become the number one app marketplace in the world. Here at Gadget Hacks we love apps and were excited to hear that the Google Play Store held an awards ceremony to celebrate some of the best apps of the year. Bu ...more
Our workdays are typically filled with one thought: get as much completed as possible. Whether you face an inbox filled with tasks or just a project or two, both our bosses and our inner workhorses encourage us to knock out as many tasks as we can each day. But is being super- ...more
There are a number of reasons why you might want to trick a web server into thinking you're on a different operating system (OS) or web browser. One might be that you want to test the mobile version of your website from your computer. Or perhaps for some reason a website is re ...more
If you're not using your iPhone's Files app yet to manage images, documents, and other files on iCloud, third-party cloud services, or your local storage, it's time to start. Apple's built-in file manager is finally a powerhouse with many tricks up its sleeve in the latest sof ...more
Apple's new iOS 16 software update is finally here, and there are over 350 new features and changes for you to enjoy on your iPhone. There are major lock screen and home screen improvements, a pleasant surprise for the Contacts app, and tons of new upgrades to Safari, Mail, Me ...more
Malevolent hackers can divert your incoming calls and texts to any number they want, and they don't need to be a criminal mastermind to do it. Even friends and family members can reroute your incoming calls and messages so that they know exactly who's trying to reach you, and ...more
Most packages sent to you via delivery services include a tracking number that allows you to track it from the creation of the shipping label all the way to your doorstep. The U.S. Postal Service includes tracking information with many of its mailing services, but not for firs ...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
Samsung's One UI has slowly become the model for Android skins. The old iOS-like TouchWiz already feels like a relic, thanks in part to the newer user interface's exceptional design and fast but meaningful updates. One UI is so good, other OEM skins have copied elements of it. ...more
Spotify is one of the most popular music streaming services available and allows you a high degree of control over the way you experience your music. Included in that is the album art for your playlists. While not an option ingrained in the mobile app itself, changing a playli ...more
If you love to take selfies and post them online for all the world to see, then it's important to ensure that you are always sharing your best side. It's pretty common for people to just open up their stock camera app and snap a quick photo, wherever they may be — but there's ...more
Zenge came to my attention as a free game on the Google Play store — it will remain free until midnight, so anyone catching this review on the 25th, download it ASAP — but I imagine it would be worth the typical $0.99. While it can be mentally-frustrating to purchase a game — ...more
Over the past week, companies took a variety of approaches to investing in augmented reality. Lampix is backing its own effort to build an ecosystem for augmented reality platforms. Nokia and Xiaomi are teaming up on numerous fronts, potentially including augmented reality. ...more
The stock home screen app that comes with your phone is nothing compared to Nova Launcher. Not only is Nova faster, but it's got tons of customization tweaks like gestures, adjustable grid sizes, and icon packs, just to name a few. In fact, the only area where stock launchers ...more
Over 1.2 million people in the US are infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)—and one out of eight of them don't know it. Even after decades of intense research into the virus, there's still no cure for it. One of the big problems is that the virus hides out in certai ...more
Welcome to another C tutorial. We will be looking at arrays, discussing what they are, when they are used and their special relationship with the char variable. Let's begin. What Is an Array? Think of an array as a sort of container or like... a buffer. They allow us to be a ...more
3D Touch is a new feature on the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus that's reinventing the way we interact with our smartphones. With just a little bit of added pressure when tapping on the display, you can perform Quick Actions from an app's home screen icon, "Peek" at emails, stories, an ...more
Video: . Project Overview Have any old school floppy drives lying around? Get hacking... and transform them into an electronic orchestra! This project uses a myRIO embedded controller and four floppy disk drives. The myRIO effectively plays the disk drives like musical instru ...more
From time immemorial, human beings seem to be at odds with one another. When these differences become so heated and unresolvable, it eventually erodes into physical violence. This violence has manifested into some of the most horrific exercises in human history, things which e ...more
Security is a priority for many when they first set up their mobile devices. Nobody wants to have a stranger or nosey friend go through their phone and discover risqué photos or embarrassing text messages. These days, the closet is gone—everyone keeps their skeletons in their ...more
Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers! Sometimes, we don't have a specific target in mind, but rather we are simply looking for vulnerable and easy-to-hack targets anywhere on the planet. Wouldn't be great if we had a search engine like Google that could help us find these targe ...more
The new Google Now Launcher has hotword detection and one-swipe access to Google Now, but personally, it's not enough to convert me away from other launchers like Apex or Nova. Just because it's Google's official launcher for stock Android doesn't make it better than all the r ...more
Like many other smartphones these days, your Samsung Galaxy S4 is built to handle multitasking like a pro. With a 1.9 GHz processor and 2 GB of RAM (specs comparable to laptop computers just a few years ago), this powerhouse of a phone can switch between apps with supreme ease ...more
Last week, I highlighted 5 of my favorite free interactive live wallpapers that you could use on your Android device. But where do you go from there? What's the next step up? While the regular old interactive live wallpapers are amazing, if you can't stop thinking about your ...more
If you're not using Control Center on your iPhone, you're missing out on a powerful tool that can streamline how you interact with your device, make certain tasks more efficient, and give you quick access to system tools, switches, and sliders for quick changes no matter where ...more
You might have missed it, but the virtual keypad you use to enter phone numbers in your smartphone's dialer and contacts app isn't all numbers. Take a closer look, and you'll notice a few mysterious buttons you've likely been tuning out unconsciously. But it's time to stop ign ...more
You can add a timestamp to any YouTube video in just a few clicks from the desktop website on your computer but not from YouTube's iOS or Android app. Until YouTube adds a "start time" when sharing videos from the mobile app, you'll have to use one of these workarounds on your ...more
ADB and Fastboot are powerful tools that have always required a computer. But with the right setup, you can now send commands to a phone using another phone. The ADB and Fastboot Magisk module, by osm0sis and Surge1223, will turn your phone into an ADB terminal using root acc ...more
Okay, so you rooted your Android phone .... now what? There are a few ducks you need to get into a row, like backing up your stock boot image, getting SafetyNet sorted, and improving security with biometrics. But there are also awesome root mods waiting for you — just don't ge ...more
Facebook Messenger is a messaging app first, but of its more than 1.3 billion monthly users, 32 percent use its video chat feature at least once every month. While it may seem pretty straightforward to video call with family and friends on Messenger, there are many tips and tr ...more
Hi, everyone! Recently, I've been working on a pretty interesting and foolish project I had in mind, and here I'm bringing to all of you my findings. This guide's main aim is to document the process of building an Android kernel, specifically a CyanogenMod kernel and ROM, and ...more
There are a few significant improvements for your iPhone with the iOS 17.5 software update, released May 13, but my favorite is Apple's enhancements to the Apple News app, which is making its Puzzles section even more fun with Game Center integration and even a new type of wor ...more
While it's not usually the first thing everyone looks at after installing a new iOS software update, I'd give the new accessibility features on your iPhone priority attention because there are some highly valuable tools that even users without disabilities can enjoy. Of cours ...more
Video editing is no small task. Computationally, it requires some pretty hefty processing power, perhaps more so than any other task you might want to perform on your phone. But with the right software, doing something like blurring the faces of people in your videos doesn't h ...more
The Pixel 5 is a great value proposition in this era of $1,500 phones. With its reasonable price tag, fully open-sourced software, and unlockable bootloader, it's also an ideal phone for rooting. The process of rooting the Pixel 5 is a tried and true method: Unlock the bootlo ...more
The average iPhone user has between 60 to 90 applications installed. On one of my devices, I have over 600. With a ton of apps to sort through, it can sometimes be challenging to find the one you're looking for without having to use the Search tool (which is even better in iOS ...more
One of the benefits of Blu-ray and DVD is the ability to share discs with friends and family without any hassle. Want to show off your favorite movie? Just lend them your copy. A digital movie isn't so kind, as it's typically locked to the account that purchased it. But now th ...more
Google is an incredibly useful database of indexed websites, but querying Google doesn't search for what you type literally. The algorithms behind Google's searches can lead to a lot of irrelevant results. Still, with the right operators, we can be more exact while searching f ...more
Whenever the name Magic Leap comes up, the talk inevitably seems to turn to the company's big-name backers and "unicorn-level" amounts of cash poured into the venture. And if it's not that, observers tend to focus on the company's market strategy and overall prospects. These ...more
If you store important, sensitive information on your iPhone in Notes, you'll want to be more careful. When Notes syncs across your iPad and Mac via iCloud — devices that family members or coworkers may share — you run the risk of having your notes read, edited, and deleted by ...more
One of the primary factors that separates an augmented reality device from a standard heads-up display such as Google Glass is dimensional depth perception. This can be created by either RGB cameras, infrared depth cameras, or both, depending on the level of accuracy you're ai ...more
The LG V30 has solid battery life. With its QHD P-OLED screen and 4 GB RAM, it's able to maintain all-day performance with average use. Heavier users might find that its 3,300 mAh battery isn't quite enough for a full day of work, though, but with a few software tweaks, you ca ...more
If you've spent countless hours scrolling through Instagram feeds full of selfies, then I'm sure you know that some are, well ... better than others. There are so many different things you can do to start taking better selfies to post on social media. One really easy way is to ...more