Photo Booth Effect

On Wednesday, Apple released a new batch of Animoji characters that gives iPhone X users more virtual masks to play around with, but what many have been waiting for is an app that lets you put on a virtual mask of another person, not an animated emoji. Well, that day has final ...more

Continuing its unrelenting (and mostly successful) campaign against Snapchat, on Tuesday, Facebook announced the addition of "World Effects" to its Messenger app. If that sounds familiar, it's because the name and general execution mirror Snapchat's popular "World Lens" featu ...more

If you've ever wanted to be a graffiti artist, but you also frown upon vandalism, then augmented reality is for you. A trio of iOS apps leveraging the ARKit platform turn the world into your canvas, where you are free to paint to your heart's delight. (Until a company like Ar ...more

The first big update to iOS 11 since its release in mid-September just came out, so check your iPhone for a software update to iOS 11.1, because there are a few things you'll want from it. While there's no sight of Apple Pay Cash or Messages in iCloud, there are some significa ...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

At IFA in Berlin today, Sony introduced the latest models of the Xperia line, with new features in tow that should appeal to creators of augmented and virtual reality content. The Xperia XZ1 and XZ1 Compact both carry the Motion-Eye camera that can capture video at 960 frames ...more

If you're not a fan of your iPhone's ability to adjust screen brightness by itself, you've probably turned off auto-brightness on multiple occasions in the past. All you would do is go to your "Display & Brightness" settings and toggle it off, but that's no longer the case in ...more

Advertisers must love when their commercials go viral. Take for instance the Esurance commercial where an elderly woman completely misunderstands Facebook jargon. "That's not how it works! That's not how any of this works!" And a meme is born. Well, what if I told you there ...more

A Norwegian carrier's launch of a pilotless container ship next year could lead the way to a new era in sea transportation and shipping if successful. Norway-based Yara International ASA, a self-touted "Tesla of the seas," claims the eletric-powered vessel will be the world's ...more

Lyft officially laid its stake in the ground to develop driverless fleets following its Friday announcement, but how fast it is catching up to ride-hailing competitor Uber's driverless initiative remains to be seen. Following Uber's ex-CEO and founder Travis Kalanick's recent ...more

The laws and regulations in place in the US for driverless vehicles are a mess, but Republican congressional members say they can fix it. The congressmen hope to pass a bill scheduled to go before the House of Representatives this week that will allow carmakers to test and se ...more

The new iOS 11 was just released by Apple, and you can install it right now. Overall, it's got some great features, but how does it fare battery-wise on your iPhone? And how can you increase daily battery life for more juice and less charging every day? No matter the iOS vers ...more

Say goodbye to boring video chats over Messenger. Now the app is rolling out new features that can make any chat interesting and fun. There are a ton of them too, ranging from filters, to AR masks, to reactions. Reactions can be found by clicking on the 'thumbs up' icon at t ...more

Former Google employee Tristan Harris claims there's an easy way to combat phone addiction without installing any new software. By enabling grayscale on your phone, checking your apps and notifications will be less appealing and thus stop you from obsessively checking your pho ...more

The Galaxy S8 and S8+ have enough screen real estate to accommodate almost all use cases, whether that's watching movies, playing games, or browsing through photos. That said, the massive navigation bar is nothing short of ugly and a screen hog — but there is a way to fix that ...more

Instagram enthusiasts will be pleased to know that there is finally a way to post your Live Photos on the service. The animated images were supported by Facebook, Tumblr, and Google after the feature was launched on the iPhone 6S, but it's taken Instagram a year to catch on. ...more

The LG V20 was released in the fourth quarter of 2016 as a flagship phone with audio capabilities far superior to that of anything else on the market—but only if you have your headphones connected. The single bottom-firing speaker, on the other hand, is just unpleasant to list ...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

This morning, in an early morning session at GDC 2017, Brandon Bray, a senior program manager lead at Microsoft, revealed a mixed reality headset made in collaboration with Acer—a different headset than the one we saw from Acer at CES 2017 earlier this year. Also at the event, ...more

If your phone has an AMOLED display, it doesn't waste any battery to power black portions of the screen. This is because the individual pixels that make up an AMOLED screen emit their own light, which means the backlight you'd find behind a traditional LCD screen is not presen ...more

Everyone loves sharing pictures and quick video clips with Snapchat, but while the service itself is tons of fun, the Android app is one of the worst on the market. For one, Snapchat takes terrible photos even on high-end Android phones. And to make matters worse, the app is a ...more

The Google Pixel and Pixel XL have an exclusive set of navigation buttons that you can't get on any other device without some tinkering. But aside from just being solid, filled-in shapes, the real treat in the Pixel's nav bar is the Google Assistant animation that gets activat ...more

Blue light (like that from our smartphone) tricks the human brain into thinking it's still daytime, even if it's coming from something as small as a screen. So while you're playing around with your new Pixel or Pixel XL after dark, subconscious signals to be awake are preventi ...more

Android clearly wasn't made with bilingual users in mind. When you set a default system locale, every app on your phone uses that region's language—and there's no granular control here. This really becomes an issue if you use social media or news apps that are primarily in a d ...more

A lot of folks complain about the extra features Samsung adds to Android, but while there are some benefits to the slimmer stock Android, the TouchWiz firmware on Galaxy devices definitely has its own advantages. Your phone creates a personalized equalizer based on your actua ...more

Several Samsung phones have a feature that turns the screen black and white when the battery is getting low. This takes advantage of the AMOLED display in these devices, because unlike red, green, and blue pixels, no battery power is used to display black pixels on this type o ...more

Rooted users have been able to remap their hardware buttons since the earliest days of Android, allowing them to change the functionality behind one of the most centralized methods of interacting with a phone or tablet. Up until now, however, non-rooted users have been left ou ...more

Lens Launcher was one of the winners of 2106's Android Experiments I/O Challenge a few months ago, and with good reason—it gives us a new way to browse for apps on our Android phones. It's slightly reminiscent of how the Apple Watch does it, but even better. Don't Miss: Use C ...more

While there are tools online that let you turn photos into interesting emoji art, and mobile apps that let you create emoji mosaics, none do it better than an iPhone app by second verse, which makes it a super easy, highly customizable process. Fotomoji, introduced last Febru ...more

The Cheshire Cat isn't like other famous cartoon cats: he's brilliantly purple and hot pink, ever smiling and entirely unnatural. However, he makes for a perfect Halloween costume, with his bright, neon appearance and mysterious nature. With this step-by-step makeup tutorial ...more

Who doesn't love the world of Game of Thrones? Whether you're a fan of the hit HBO show, or can't wait for George R. R. Martin's next novel installment, it's a story loved by nearly everyone. It's an excellent source of inspiration for Halloween costumes too, ranging from the ...more

One of the most exciting things about a major iOS update is the discovery of new glitches, or even just finding ways to replicated the old ones that we've come to love so much. One of these is the glitch that lets you nest folders within folders on the home screen, which can s ...more

Cupcakes are special treats by themselves, so surprise-inside piñata cupcakes are extra special for birthdays and special occasions. You can customize these with any flavor of cupcake and any type of candy or chocolate treat you want to stuff them with. Don't Miss: Use Candy ...more

Raw fruit "cakes" are all the rage these days, and this stacked watermelon cake is easy to put together and is perfect for people of all ages. It's also perfect for every diet, as it's low-calorie, low-fat, gluten-free, and full of "good" carbs. Don't Miss: 6 Watermelon Hacks ...more

I'm as adventurous an eater as just about anyone, but some foodie trends leave me scratching my head and wanting nothing more than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But sometimes the trends become trends because they're, well, brilliant. Such is the case with strawberries, ...more

We've all been there: you're staring at a fantastic-looking salad or sandwich full of your favorite ingredients. You take a bite, and you taste only one thing—raw onion. A glass of water, a toothbrush, and an hour later, and your breath still tastes like only one thing—raw oni ...more

There are a number of ways to give your productivity a kicktstart, from taking a break from your distracting smartphone to just taking a break, plain and simple. Yet finding the motivation to start working doesn't require any effort at all—just a little bit of green. Bring Na ...more

With platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat available for anyone to take advantage of, I'm all about differentiating from the mundane and repetitive images we see on social media everyday. Admittedly, even I can fall victim to the occasional selfie or food porn, but ...more

There's a reason that YouTube continues to be the most popular video sharing site on the planet—ever since its purchase by Google, they've always made sure to load YouTube up with extra features to keep it ahead of the pack. Starting today, users can now upload full 360-degre ...more

I once had a collection of over 300 different wallpapers for my MacBook, set to randomly change every 30 minutes. Needless to say, my desktop never got boring. Wallpapers can facilitate a mood, imply a political stance, or just add aesthetic appeal, so having to manually chang ...more

Spotify lets you use Siri commands to play and control music on your iPhone, but it wasn't always like that. It only applies in iOS 13 and later, so if you're on an older iPhone model with an older iOS version, you can use a really complicated workaround in iOS 12 or try a jai ...more

When Google first introduced Android 4.4, the most glaring user-facing change was a new trend towards transparency. The stock launcher, originally exclusive to the Nexus 5, had transparent status and navigation bars and its app drawer added a touch of transparency. They even ...more

Whether it's bad timing, or some trying-to-be-funny photobomber, it sucks having a photo ruined by someone or something getting in the way. While you can always retake the photo, it's simply impossible to capture the moment you intended, no matter how much restaging you do. Bu ...more

Mashed potatoes are universally beloved, and for a good reason — they're cheap, tasty, and relatively easy to make. What's more, they're adaptable to just about every dietary regimen, whether you're vegan, gluten-free, or lactose-intolerant. And they're a staple for holidays s ...more

One draw that Samsung's Galaxy S line has had over the Google Nexus 4 and 5 and the HTC One (though the M8 appears to be following suit) is expandable storage. Pop a microSD card into the slot and you have extra storage for music, photos, and even apps themselves in some cases ...more

You've seen it a million times. You try to do something on your Android device and a box pops up asking you which app you'd like to use. You could try Photos, Gallery, Drive, Picasa Web Albums...the list is fairly extensive sometimes. And what's worse, after that you have to s ...more

For those of you who have (or had) and iPhone, one of the cooler photo apps for iOS was VSCO Cam, an extremely popular camera with pro-quality filters and effects. Now this app is available for Android on Google Play for your Nexus 7 tablet and any other devices running Androi ...more

If you're not acquainted with 500px, you should be. One of the more preeminent photography communities out there, 500px takes you through a journey of incredible shots—anything from nature and urban explorations to cities and architecture to the abstract. Whatever your prefere ...more

UPDATE: The whitehouse petition has received enough signatures to require a response from the government. Your voices have been heard! Now we wait... The Man is always trying to hold you back, and when it comes to the government, it can be this biggest swag blocker of all. As ...more

Portal has been one of the most critically acclaimed and universally loved games of the last few years, and there's plenty of fan art to prove it. From building a Portal gun, to a gravity defying Companion Cube, and even installing Portal onto a graphing calculator, fans have ...more

What's the meaning of life? That's the age-old question; but can it ever really be answered? I mean, isn't life just a big game anyway? Perhaps, a game of inches? Video: . Was that question just an excuse for me to embed the greatest movie speech of all time in this posting? A ...more

Last year, Lytro released their first light field camera to help photographers have more control over focusing. This innovative and revolutionary camera allows users to change the depth of focus of a photograph after the picture is taken. Video: . These depth-of-field-changeab ...more

In evolutionary times, we were far more likely to die from starvation than from diseases related to obesity. In those times, when food was available, it was best to stuff oneself. This can be seen in an experiment run by Brian Wansink. Wansink gave a bunch of subjects some s ...more

Remember the 1960's American television series Batman, with Adam West as Bruce Wayne? It was waaaaay before my time. The caped crusader that I'm more familiar with is actually this one... When I first heard of Adam West, it was him doing the Batusi on The Simpsons. I had no id ...more

When you're a kid, the best part about Halloween is the free candy, but if you're past your trick-or-treating years, there are still plenty of things you can do. With all the costumes, scary stories, and pranks, what's not to love? And now, you can even use your smartphone to ...more

Collodion—it's one of those things that you probably never heard of before, but have actually come across many times in life. It's used for all kinds of applications, from photography to special effects, and it even has a few medical uses. So, what exactly is collodion? Photo ...more

The iPhone doesn't stop at last year's excellent iPhone 12 lineup. Apple's been developing its iPhone 13 models for a while now, and there are a lot of rumors already with eight or nine months still to go until a release. This year, we're expecting four new models with similar ...more

Apple has four iPhone models for the remaining months of 2020, but the most impressive ones are the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max. While the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini are great smartphones, the "Pro" models offer more advanced features, especially for photographers an ...more

There are more than a few exciting new Home Screen customization options available in the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 software updates, including some we've been waiting years for. Apple never mentioned a few of these new features and changes in the release notes, but you can see the ...more

Your iPhone has plenty of already-created Apple wallpapers just waiting for you to set as your Lock Screen and Home Screen backgrounds. But using a photo from your own library can provide a more emotional connection, help you express yourself better, and give your phone a more ...more