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It's open season on Zoom, the video conferencing platform that has grown in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic but has come under fire due to privacy issues. First, Google has opened up Meet, its video conferencing services for G-Suite subscribers, as a free service for ...more

When it comes to ad blocking on Android, there's no better app than AdAway. The popular root mod filters out ads at the hosts file level, so no extra processing power is used, and your phone is literally incapable of loading most ads. But one thing AdAway doesn't do is get ri ...more

One of the scariest things about the COVID-19 virus is that you can show no symptoms but still be infected (and contagious). Naturally, we all want to know whether we're carrying the new coronavirus, but if you're showing signs of COVID-19, how can you be tested to know for su ...more

The first annual Snap Partner Summit kicked off on Thursday in Los Angeles, and with it came some new products announcements, several of which enhance Snapchat's already robust augmented reality powers. Among the new releases, the big standout is an interface change that the ...more

Normally, "restricted access" is something you despise. No one likes to be told they can't do something, especially when it comes to the Internet. Unfortunately, having web access at all times can not only eat away at your wallet, but make your day less productive overall, so ...more

Whether you're a celebrity or someone with something to hide, Facebook allows you to keep your "friends list" private so you can protect the identities of your Facebook friends. But it only kind of protects them. There's a simple Facebook hack that lets you unravel entire net ...more

By looking for the mechanism that allows influenza A to invade lung cells, scientists also discovered a treatment that might block the virus from taking hold there. An infection of the lungs is called pneumonia, which is caused by bacteria, viruses, and fungi that target alve ...more

Apple wants to support the advertising economy, but its primary focus of late has been user privacy and security. In Safari, cross-site tracking, which lets content providers track you across websites and apps to show you more targeted ads, is disabled by default. However, con ...more

As you're surely aware, your phone can be used against you. Thanks to our cameras and microphones, a clever hacker can obtain access to your device and invade your privacy. But spying isn't limited to just these two sensors — gyroscopes, proximity sensors, QR codes, and even a ...more

Social media is constantly evolving, and as a result, we're now capable of sharing much more than we were even just a few years ago. Television, on the other hand, continues to hold strong as one of America's favorite pastimes. The folks over at Didja TV have brought these tw ...more

Augmented reality has taken the advertising industry by storm, but the technology has a steep learning curve. Luckily for advertisers, Unity is here to flatten the curve a bit. At the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2019, Unity unveiled Responsive AR, a new ...more

Google has added a number of new features in the latest update to Google Keyboard including a one-handed mode and a setting that lets you adjust the height of the keys. The update hasn't gone live on the Play Store yet, but you can download the APK right now for both 32-bit an ...more

You saw our post on the 18 coolest new features of iOS 7, but now that you've had a chance to play around with your updated iPhone, it's time to lock it down. There are a surprising number of new privacy and security-related issues in iOS 7's default settings, from allowing A ...more

It's getting harder and harder to escape ad tracking by the day. For the latest example, look no further than T-Mobile. The No. 2 carrier updated its privacy policy on Feb. 23, 2021, indicating that it would start sharing customer data with advertisers under the guise of more ...more

It just got a whole lot easier to decide whether or not saving $50 on Amazon's new ad- and bloatware-subsidized smartphones is worth the headache of having to see an advertisement on the lock screen every time you wake the device. That's because you can get rid of the lock sc ...more

Most of you probably hate ads on your smartphone, but they're a part of modern digital life. As long as apps like Instagram are free to use, then we'll need to pay by dealing with posts, videos, and pop-ups trying to sell us stuff. Well, not necessarily, so long as you're OK w ...more

Facebook just released its new "home on Android" last Friday, appropriately called Facebook Home. Taking a cue from Amazon's Kindle, Home serves as an "operating system" that runs over Android. While the HTC First will be the first smartphone to ship with Home out of the box, ...more

If you're looking into buying shoes from DSW on Black Friday, then you can save an extra 20% — but only if you smile more. An augmented reality mobile web ad campaign created for the retailer by PadSquad asks customers to smile for the camera. According to a PadSquad spokespe ...more

I've been an Android user almost as long as the operating system has existed, so when I received my first iPhone in April, I felt like I was in a foreign land. Sure, it runs most of the apps I'm used to, and the phone itself feels about the same in my hand as any similarly-siz ...more

Whether we like it or not, our personal information and smartphones are tied together at the hip. The former needs the latter to deliver a personalized experience that matches our individual needs. This personal data, however, makes your phone a prime target for thieves of all ...more

After pouring out $10 million for 60 seconds of Super Bowl advertising time, Doritos and Mountain Dew continued their Sunday marketing binge on Snapchat. For their spot during the game, Doritos and Mountain Dew staged a lip-synched rap battle between highly meme-able actors P ...more

Instagram updated its iOS and Android apps recently with an "Activity Status" indicator. This status allows your friends to see when you are currently active and when you were last active on Instagram. The problem is, Instagram was pretty quiet about this update, so many of yo ...more

Despite the launch of ARKit a year ago, and ARCore this year, a true killer app has not arrived for either platform, that's according to the head honcho for one of the leading development environments for 3D applications. In an interview at TechCrunch Disrupt on Wednesday, Un ...more

Many of us choose to use an iPhone — as well as other devices in the Apple ecosystem — because of the company's dedication to user privacy and security. If you need more proof of that commitment, look no further than iOS 14.5, released April 26, which adds new tools to protect ...more

Rabbit ears and dog noses are fun and all, but Kay Jewelers is here to class up Snapchat. Claiming a first among the jewelry market, Kay Jewelers has launched a Sponsored Lens that lets Snapchatters virtually try-on three necklaces. A pucker of the lips triggers a virtually-b ...more

We've been able to download our Facebook data onto our computers for a while now, but now you can do so right from the comfort of your iPhone or Android phone. With it, you'll be able to integrate your data into other apps that support it or even just download it before you de ...more

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Niantic must be blushing constantly, as numerous copies of Pokémon GO have spawned over the past year or so, seeking to capture the same success, often adding the lure of tangible prizes from brand partnerships. Freeze Tag, ...more

Ad blocking on Android usually requires root access, but a pair of new browsers based on the open source Chromium and Firefox builds are looking to change this. Today, I'll be going over two options for ad-free web browsing without root access. The first is the Chromium-based ...more

Your iPhone is full of features, many of which you might not even know about yet. Still, Apple keeps adding feature after feature with each new iOS update, and iOS 14.5 is no exception. The latest iOS version adds at least 69 features for your iPhone that you should be happy a ...more

Fast-food chain Jack in the Box has decided to put an augmented reality twist on the traditional sweepstakes promotion by employing the immersive powers of Snapchat. Now through Aug. 18, the chain will run a Jack in the Box AR experience that gives customers a chance to win p ...more

Great ideas often strike at random times, but messaging friends and loved ones at an inopportune hour not only risks their wrath, but also increases the chances of your message not being paid proper attention to. Thankfully, there's an app that lets you create and post WhatsAp ...more

Augmented reality and computer vision company Blippar has a new lease on life, as previous investor Candy Ventures has completed a successful bid to acquire the assets of the beleaguered company. Blippar entered administration (the UK's version of bankruptcy) last month after ...more

From its introduction and all the way through iOS 11, FaceTime has been restricted to one-on-one calls. Apple will be changing that in a future iOS 12 update with Group FaceTime, which adds support for up to 32 people total in group audio and video calls. But that's not all we ...more

My favorite color is blue, but if everyone I knew said the same thing, I'd probably switch to red—there's nothing cool about uniformity. One place I'm guaranteed to see plenty of my favorite hue is on Facebook. The social network has gone through many redesigns, but its signat ...more

After building a tech empire on revenues from search advertising, Google is not about to sit back and let Snapchat, Facebook, 8th Wall, and others draw all the AR marketing attention to their platforms. This week, at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity (basi ...more

Earlier this month, when Apple announced at WWDC that iOS 12 would include an augmented reality tape measure called Measure, iPhone watchers seemed impressed by the new addition to the company's AR arsenal. Well, just a couple of weeks later, on June 19, it appears that Google ...more

The share menu is a vital part of Android that lets you send data between between apps. Many of your favorite apps support the feature, including the new Direct Share sub-menu, which can lead to a messy share menu. However, there are a number of tools to clean up this clutter, ...more

When Facebook launched its first hardware products last year, the Portal and Portal+ smart displays, the company mostly touted its video-calling features as it faced off against Amazon and its Echo Show. But Facebook also had an interesting feature that mostly flew under the ...more

We know Android 9.0 will have the formal designation of Pie, following Google's age-old tradition of naming their OS after items you'd normally find on a dessert menu. And thanks to a slew of new features that centers around your overall security, P could also stand for Privac ...more

Netflix has become the subject of heavy buzz this week, and not due to the latest season of Daredevil (which gets two thumbs up, btw). The online video entertainment provider is drawing fire over its admission that it has been throttling video streams for its AT&T and Verizon ...more

More than likely, the first thing you noticed after booting up Windows 10 initially was a handful of new items in the taskbar across the bottom of your screen. Windows 8 users were probably glad to see the Start menu button back from the dead, but just to the right of that Win ...more

If there's one gripe I have with Android Lollipop, it's the new volume menu. When Priority mode was introduced, the stock volume panel was revamped to accommodate it, and somewhere along the way a bit of functionality was lost. The way things are now, there are only two metho ...more

Even though I am not cool enough to use Instagram on a daily basis, I still try to stay in the loop. I did take photography in high school, so I know a thing or two about picture taking. I just can't seem to find the motivation to take a picture of random crap during my daily ...more

Facebook is preparing to make augmented reality experiences for brands more visible in its mobile app with Tuesday's introduction of augmented reality ads in its News Feed. News Feed AR ads will enable advertisers to insert AR camera effects, from virtual product try-ons to p ...more

Your social security number, credit card information, and medical history can fall into the wrong hands if you're not careful about how and where you share your data online. If you really care about your data, there are tools and techniques you can utilize to protect yourself ...more

Google's sociable equivalent to the Facebook Like button is finally here, and it works very similar to your favorite social network's recommendation system, except it shows up directly in Google search results. Whenever your Google friend gives a website or webpage the +1, you ...more

The new film Brightburn, a horror take on the superhero genre produced by Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn, debuted in theaters on Friday, and it has some promotional backing from Snapchat to drive ticket sales. Available via Snapcode, the augmented reality experie ...more

Immersive advertising company Vertebrae has extended its native ad platform to augmented reality via mobile Chrome browsers for Android and Safari for iPhone. Originally built for virtual reality, the platform provides advertisers with six templates. For the front-facing came ...more

With a new installment of the Saw horror series opening in theaters nationwide this weekend, Lionsgate is betting its ad dollars on immersive advertising to sell tickets. Using Vertebrae's recently-launched AR mobile web ad platform, the ads for Jigsaw will be served as displ ...more

Snapchat has broken new ground in its augmented reality advertising efforts, as BMW has opted to show off its new X2 model in AR with the Augmented Trial Lens. Users who opt in to the experience via ads running between user or publisher stories (or scan the corresponding Snap ...more

Our smartphones are full of personally-identifiable information. So much of what we do with these devices is tracked and recorded to make our experience more streamlined and personalized. For many users, that's a fair trade — but for privacy-minded folks, it's a raw deal. And ...more

Already one of the leaders in augmented reality for cosmetics, L'Oréal is extending the reach of its ModiFace virtual try-on platform through a partnership with Facebook. The cosmetics company will be integrating the augmented reality experiences built with Modiface into Face ...more

When it comes to mass adoption, augmented reality is still primarily a mobile world, so Google is pitching its own ARCore flavor of mobile AR to the education and marketing segments. On Tuesday, at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Conference in Chi ...more

While some companies like IKEA and Lowe's zig towards ARKit to entice shoppers, Target has opted to zag to broader appeal with an augmented reality see-before-you-buy tool for its mobile website. With Target's new See In Your Space Tool, shoppers can visualize more than 200 f ...more

During the recent Augmented World Expo (AWE), we had a chance to try out the Lenovo ThinkReality A6 AR headset. Unfortunately, the experience was all downhill from there. Meanwhile, Vuzix continues to pursue both enterprise and consumer customers with Vuzix Blade, with a new ...more

One of the best things about Android is the ability to customize every aspect of your device to make it your own. However, unless you have prior knowledge or experience with every single setting available to you, you might have missed a few critical features without even knowi ...more

Android has gotten significantly better at handling intrusive ads over the years. Things have gotten to the point to where these nuisances are largely a non-issue for most of us. However, there are still a few ad-laden apps that fall through the cracks — particularly the kind ...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

One unique feature of Firefox Mobile is extensions. Extensions allow users to add in features that didn't originally come with the browser. These add-ons provide an array of features, including improvement to privacy and security. There are a number of steps you can take to i ...more