Code execution in Microsoft Word is easier than ever, thanks to recent research done by Etienne Stalmans and Saif El-Sherei. Executing code in MS Word can be complicated, in some cases requiring the use of Macros or memory corruption. Fortunately, Microsoft has a built in a fe ...more
As the fish farming industry struggles to become more environmentally friendly, it just gained another problem. Fish food loaded with antibiotic-resistant genes. Do you like salmon? Around the world, salmon aquaculture represents about 70% of the market, according to the Worl ...more
One of the most popular usages of modern-day smartphones is listening to music. It doesn't matter if you download or stream your tunes, you are part of a massive group of users who do exactly the same. While statistics are a bit foggy on how many smartphones users download mus ...more
Microsoft recently released "Seeing AI," an app aimed to help the blind understand their surroundings. As Microsoft puts it, "the app narrates the world around you by turning the visual world into an audible experience." We asked Matthew Chao, the brother of one of our founde ...more
Type 1 diabetes is an attack on the body by the immune system — the body produces antibodies that attack insulin-secreting cells in the pancreas. Doctors often diagnose this type of diabetes in childhood and early adulthood. The trigger that causes the body to attack itself ha ...more
On April 7, 2017, residents in Dallas, Texas, woke to the sound of emergency sirens blaring all over the city. No one could shut them off, and after repeated efforts to contain the situation, the city had to shut down the entire system. While the media reported a sophisticated ...more
Autism affects 1 in 68 children in the US, and that means it affects at least 1 in every 68 families. More boys than girls are diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, and it's estimated that almost 60,000 12-year-olds in the US have autism. That is a 37-fold increase from t ...more
Exposed to hormones, pharmaceuticals, and other chemicals, the beautiful wild fish in Canada's Grand River have taken on some pretty odd characteristics—they're turning into females. A long-term study suggests using bacteria to manage polluted water could turn the tide for fem ...more
As researchers learn more and more about our intestinal bacteria—also called the gut microbiome—we're finding out that these microbes aren't just influencing our health and wellness, they're a useful tool for improving it, too. The bacteria in our intestinal tract must proper ...more
Bacteria gets a bad rap. Most headlines focus on the danger and discomfort posed by pathogens like bacteria, but many of the bacteria that live on and in us are vital to our health. Many products out there, called probiotics, are sold with the implication that they're supporti ...more
Mobile gaming still isn't on par with video game consoles or PCs, but we've come a long way from Snake. Modern games running on the latest smartphones boast downright impressive graphics—even more so when you consider how compact the system has to be in order to fit in people' ...more
Google's new Pixel and Pixel XL flagships are some very powerful smartphones, but as with any high-tech gadget, they're only as capable as the user allows them to be. So if you're a proud new Pixel owner, it's time to bone up on a few new features to help get the most out of y ...more
If your iPhone has a Home button, such as either iPhone SE model, old or new, then it has a secret triple-click gesture to activate a suite of shortcuts. These options, dubbed accessibility shortcuts, can work wonders for folks that are hearing impaired, have limited use of th ...more
It seems like everything old is new again these days where food is concerned, and that includes the recent renaissance of babka. The name of this rich, rolled yeast bread, with roots in both the Jewish and non-Semitic Eastern European communities, means "little grandmother" in ...more
Up until the last 15 years or so, watching the commercials during the Super Bowl was arguably more exciting than the game itself. Super Bowl XXIV featured the San Francisco 49ers blowing out the Broncos, 55-10, in the worst Super Bowl beatdown of all time. The game might not h ...more
Making sure you have the best gallery app available for your Android device used to be as easy as just installing QuickPic. But late last year, Android's top photo-viewing app was sold to a company who is notorious for permission spamming, so QuickPic quickly lost everyone's a ...more
In order to make your food taste good, your favorite restaurant is most likely using way more salt than you think they are (among other pro secrets). Which is why when you ask just about any professional cook what the biggest problem with most home-cooked meals are, they almos ...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
Though many students spend four years of high school learning a foreign language, most of us probably retained very little. Chalk it up to the carelessness of youth, but chances are you've since been in situations or places that left you wishing you paid more attention in clas ...more
Gatorade: its popular red flavor can stain the whitest fabric, and its sweet taste is oddly refreshing after breaking a sweat. If you've ever participated in a sport, you probably spent halftime at games and practice breaks chugging the stuff. Though it made its name as a spor ...more
Making a good pie crust can seem intimidating to the uninitiated, but once you master this skill, a whole world opens up to you. Not only can you make all manner of fruit, custard, and cream-filled pies once you know all the tricks, you can branch out into the world of quiches ...more
Keeping data private is vital in the days of smartphones and the free-floating information they carry. Justin wrote a guide on many of the deeply hidden and sometimes concerning privacy settings in iOS 7. Now we're back to cover some of the new (and old) privacy settings in iO ...more
Although your friends might roll their eyes every time you talk about playing Clash of Clans, Call of Duty, or Candy Crush Saga, your excessive gaming habits might actually be making you healthier than everyone else. I've got your attention now, right? Read on for 8 insanely ...more
For the novice cook, fungi can be weird because, well, they're fungi. However, if you've been afraid to get acquainted with mushrooms, you've been missing out. Vegetarians love mushrooms and with good reason. Their rich, savory flavor comes a close second to umami-rich meat. ...more
Cold brewing tea and coffee are all the rage, and for good reason: they're idiot-proof. I, personally, am a total dunce at brewing coffee. It either ends up strong enough to peel paint from a car or so weak that you can see through it. Meanwhile, I have friends who inevitably ...more
Many of the beauty products you buy at drug and department stores are loaded with potentially toxic ingredients like parabens, while their active ingredients are made of things like glycolic, lactic, malic, and alpha hydroxy acids and retinoids, which are all derived from food ...more
Remember the feeling you had the moment you removed your shiny new Nexus device from its packaging and booted it up for the first time? You swiped through the app drawer at lightning speed and thought to yourself, "This is the last Android phone I will ever need, they just are ...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
As a species, our cells are designed to use sugar for energy. Is it any wonder that as humans evolved, we grew to love the taste of sugar? Nowadays, we're the victims of our own efficiency at making foods sweeter. Now that morbid obesity and type 2 diabetes are common issues ...more
The advent of a new Nexus phone begins with the bigwigs at Google partnering with a manufacturer, then selecting that manufacturer's flagship as the model for the new Nexus hardware. Samsung's Galaxy S and Galaxy SII were the base for the Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus, respectivel ...more
If you're marginally inclined towards computers, you've probably been approached at some point by a family member who wants you to "fix" their system during a visit home. With the holidays coming up, these opportunities (or ambushes) are even more likely. Even if nothing is w ...more
So, you've finally scored the coveted upgrade to chocolaty KitKat deliciousness, or you've managed to get your hands on a Nexus 5, the freshest thing from LG and El Goog. Satisfied with your new lease on life, you direct your phone's web browser to catch up on your Amazon Inst ...more
There's a lot of cool features rumored to be included in next year's HTC One 2 (M8), the follow up to the flagship HTC One smartphone, including a fingerprint scanner, Android 4.4 KitKat, and Sense 6.0, but it's just too far away to get really excited about yet. Besides, that ...more
The integration of technology into automobiles is becoming more and more widespread each year. Tesla's Model S features a 17" display in the middle of the dash with navigation, music control, and even an Internet browser. Mercedes is working on incorporating Google Glass into ...more
You'd think the ability to block calls from certain numbers would be built in to most phones by now, but that's certainly not the case with the iPhone. After dropping a few hundred bucks on a device, it'd be nice to be able to choose who you want to talk to, but beyond screen ...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
YouTube is the third most popular website in the world, after Google and Facebook. Millions of subscriptions happen each day on YouTube, with over 800 million unique users visiting each month. In that timespan, roughly 4 billion hours of video are watched, with 72 hours of vid ...more
Caller ID is great to have, but there are certain situations where you don't want the person you're calling to have your number. People who sometimes use their personal phones for work may not want clients knowing where to reach them outside of work, and anytime you're dealing ...more
Tea has been around for thousands of years, and as a result, tons of customs and ceremonies have sprung up around its consumption. Some cultures take their tea plain, while others put things in it. Sometimes there are special tea-holding vessels, other times not. Maybe there w ...more
AppleScript is quite an easy scripting language to use. In this guide, I will be showing you several commands. Near the end, I will show how these can be used to create a fake virus that actually does no harm. Of course, this is only one way to use these commands—use your ima ...more
While many of the features in the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro series build on what we've seen in previous iPhone models, Apple has packed the 2024 lineup with iOS 18 and plenty of fresh upgrades worth considering. The iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max boast several groundbreaking feature ...more
Using different sounds on your iPhone for different notifications can help you determine — just by listening — alerts you may want to look at immediately versus untimely alerts or even ones you typically ignore. But Apple has never given us complete control over notification s ...more
When you enable Low Power Mode on your iPhone, it's not always clear what measures it's taking to reduce battery drain and conserve power. Changes to energy-hungry features you use daily may be immediately noticeable, but some things you frequently use may be disabled or reduc ...more
While you can quickly see the edit history of a modified iMessage in the Messages app, there's no way to view an iMessage that somebody in the conversation deleted unless you happened to see it before it disappeared. But that's only true if you didn't implement these security ...more
The Lens Studio community, now made up of more than 200,000 creators, has generated some impressive augmented reality effects in the last few years. Amazingly, the groundbreaking Lenses for Snapchat continue to come, often from the internal AR team at Snap. Take, for instance ...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
Apple's iMessage is one of the main reasons to use an iPhone, and there's a lot you can do in chats without being overly complicated. But there's one issue that continues to drive people nuts, and that's the blue typing bubble indicator with the moving ellipsis (•••). Can you ...more
Two brands with affinities for augmented reality, Marvel and the NBA, joined forces to inject some AR superpowers into Monday night's matchup of the Golden State Warriors and New Orleans Pelicans. While ESPN carried the traditional broadcast of the game, ESPN2 delivered a spe ...more
The march of Amazon to insert itself into nearly every retail arena continues with the e-commerce giant's latest move to launch its own brick-and-mortar beauty salons. However, this new initiative isn't limited to simply facilitating transactions at real-world locations, inst ...more
This week, Google showed off some wild new and innovative AR experiences that showcase the WebXR protocol for browser-based AR content, while 8th Wall applied its own web-based AR platform in service of Captain Morgan. Meanwhile, other brands, including Hulu, Coinbase, and Ra ...more
Excited about experiencing blazing-fast 5G speeds on your iPhone 12, 12 mini, 12 Pro, or 12 Pro Max? Well, that brand new iPhone you just bought might not actually be using 5G, even when you see that 5G symbol in the top right. Unless you follow these instructions, your iPhone ...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
As protests surge in the wake of George Floyd's murder by a Minneapolis police officer, powerful photographs and videos from the demonstrations have gripped the world, putting our nation's very real and very justifiable widespread civil unrest out into the digital world. Unfor ...more
You may be familiar with image-based or audio-based steganography, the art of hiding messages or code inside of pictures, but that's not the only way to conceal secret communications. With zero-width characters, we can use text-based steganography to stash hidden information i ...more
With every new Galaxy flagship release comes the age-old dilemma: do I choose great hardware or great software? For years, Samsung has given users the best components available on any smartphone. The problem is the software is an acquired taste. But there is something you can ...more
Navigating and editing text is an essential part of any operating system, and with iOS 13, Apple has made some significant changes. Some things remain the same when working with text, but there are many updates to moving the cursor, scrolling, and selecting, cutting, copying, ...more
Every summer for the last 26 years, hoards of hackers have descended on the Las Vegas Strip for DEFCON, the biggest hacker conference in the US. There's a wealth of talks every season (DEFCON 27 has at least 95 scheduled), and there have been some essential topics to learn fro ...more
Why do you need augmented reality? Because enterprise, they say. And while that's certainly true for several disciplines, there's still that mainstream use case hanging out there waiting for users to discover beyond the realm of enterprise and gaming. After much thought — and ...more
The wait wasn't so long this time. Apple released public beta 3 for iOS 13 on Thursday, July 18, just one day after the release of developer beta 4. For context, Apple took five days to seed public beta 2 after releasing dev beta 3, so it's a pleasant surprise that the latest ...more
We're pumped for iOS 13 and all of the fresh features and changes that come with it. Developer beta 3 came with new features in the double digits, including AR eye contact in FaceTime and mouse cursor size customization. Developer beta 4, released today, has a few more additio ...more