Legacy Games, developer of mobile games for children, has just updated Crayola Color Blaster, an augmented reality Android adventure for Google Tango devices, with new content. "Paint My Dragon," a new storyline available as an in-app purchase ($2.99), brings dragons, ogres, ...more
People fear virtual reality will isolate us, but the right experience can prove it does the opposite. AltspaceVR is a virtual world you can utilize to chat with others around the world, but that's not all. You can also play card and board games, a game of laser tag, or a song ...more
Now that the Chromecast development kit has been out for over a month, more and more Android apps are being released or updated to work with the Chromecast. Everything from games to streaming local content to personalized news stations is available. Unfortunately, there is no ...more
While both Rdio and Beats Music look to be developing support for Chromecast, Spotify has kept their distance from the Google dongle, focusing instead on "several prevailing priorities." As an avid Spotify user, I (like many others) was disappointed to hear the news, as casti ...more
That didn't take very long! Yesterday, after a lengthy delay, Google opened up the development kit for their Chromecast HDMI dongle. And as of very early this morning, renowned CyanogenMod dev Koushik Dutta, or Koush, re-enabled Chromecast support for his AllCast app: AllCas ...more
Mobile gaming, in case you haven't noticed, is huge. From the astronomical popularity of Candy Crush Saga, to the ease of using old school emulators, we love gaming on our mobile devices. The future is also bright, just take a look at the Oculus Rift, an immersive virtual worl ...more
After everyone updated their shiny Apple devices to iOS 6 a few months ago, they were shocked to find that their beloved YouTube app was missing. As it turned out, Apple decided to kick YouTube off their list of pre-installed stock apps. The new YouTube app (found in the iTune ...more
Apple's iOS 13 has been available for beta testing since June, and the stable release pushed out to everyone on Thursday, Sept. 19. To help you make the most out of iOS 13 for iPhone, we've rounded up everything you'll want to know, whether a colossal feature, small settings c ...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
With the holidays right around the corner, it's easy to miss a big software update on your iPhone, and by that, I mean iOS 15.2, which was pushed out Monday, Dec. 13. There's a surprising amount of new features and changes in the updated firmware, and there are a few big ones ...more
Twitter's official iOS app is adequate if you're not much of a tweeter, but if you are, there's a lot of useful features that are missing. Luckily, there are plenty of free Twitter clients available that you can use on your iPhone. These third-party apps have features such as ...more
NBA 2K18 has been out for the iPhone for months, but its $7.99 price tag put it out of reach for many mobile gamers. There's light at the end of the tunnel now, as a free-to-play version is in the works as a soft-launch in New Zealand. If you can't bear the wait, you can play ...more
Over the years, the internet has become a dangerous place. As its popularity has increased, it has attracted more hackers looking to make a quick buck. However, as our dependency on the web grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to sever all ties. This means we have to prote ...more
The Play Store hasn't been the most secure place for apps lately. A quick Google search for "Play Store malware" will give you a taste of some of the malicious apps that snuck their way onto Android's official app store. Google is aware of the problem and they're tying to fix ...more
If you're like me, you probably have a wishlist of Android games you'd love to buy, except the high price tags keep you away. A few bucks can feel like a fortune in the Google Play Store — you just can't bring yourself to pay that much. Well, lucky for you, Google Play has som ...more
Drones are a fairly new craze to hit the nation. While they are accessible to the general population, good drones still typically cost a ton of money and despite all the fun they are, it's sometimes not worth it to actually buy one. If you're one of those people who would love ...more
The popular RPG Death Road to Canada has finally arrived for the iPhone and iPad, and its impact is immediate. It's fast becoming a top contender for mobile video game of 2017, and it's very easy to see why. The game blends decision making and good old zombie bashing to create ...more
Visualization is one of the obvious commercial applications for technology such as Microsoft's HoloLens. The ability to see the assets of a project in different scales—from micro to larger-than-life—with a quick air tap will play a large part in the coming augmented reality re ...more
Google's YouTube Red is an awesome service, particularly in the United States where it comes bundled with a subscription to Google Play Music. You don't have to worry about ever seeing ads again on any videos, you can continue playback after you exit the YouTube app or even wh ...more
Android's Google Play Games app has let you track your feats and accomplishments in the games you play for quite a while now, but for some, the immersion experience might be broken after you finish dominating a game only to see your regular-ass name from your Google account on ...more
A lot of things have been changing over at Microsoft recently. Not only did they acquire the ever-popular Android keyboard SwiftKey and give away Windows 10 for free, but they've started a Google X-like experimental division called Microsoft Garage, and they've actually releas ...more
Starting in Android 4.3, Google added some code to AOSP that tagged your internet traffic when you were running a mobile hotspot, which made it incredibly easy for carriers to block tethering if you didn't have it included in your plan. But as of Android 6.0, this "tether_dun_ ...more
Are you tired of uploading videos to different sites separately? It's really time consuming and difficult. Finally, there is a way to upload and distribute your videos to YouTube, Facebook, Dailymotion, and many more video-hosting websites in one go. No need to upload to every ...more
There are songs that we love, songs that make us sad, and songs that change the way we view the world—and that's something that Steve Jobs knew all too well. "I was very lucky to grow up in a time when music really mattered. It wasn't just something in the background; it real ...more
When you hear a song you like but can't quite catch enough of its lyrics, it can be nearly impossible to search for it online. That's where Shazam comes in. For the past decade, they've been making music easier for us to identify by analyzing a track's acoustic footprint, requ ...more
Google's music offerings have been on a roll lately. First they announced a new music video streaming service called YouTube Music Key, offering ad-free playback with background listening. Then they stated that the new offering would be rolled in with their Google Play Music s ...more
No matter whether you're a seasoned Android veteran, or just starting to get into the scene, you have probably heard of Tasker, the king amongst all the various automation tools available. Tasker is great for keeping your phone loaded up with the perfect settings no matter th ...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
For its latest take on augmented reality-infused playsets, Lego is giving the young, and the simply young at heart, its twist on the viral lipsync format made popular by TikTok with Lego Vidiyo. The game remixes TikTok's video creation and curation features with a music busin ...more
While there are other photo-editing apps to choose from on the App Store, Apple Photos is more than good enough for most needs on the iPhone — and things only get better with age. With each new iteration of iOS, Apple refines and improves Photos for the better, and iOS 14 adds ...more
When Apple acquired the popular Workflow app in 2017, many were worried that it would either get replaced with something much worse, or just disappear entirely. Thankfully, Apple put these concerns to rest with the launch of Shortcuts. In iOS 13, Shortcuts is becoming more pow ...more
Mobile gaming has exploded in recent years, with experts predicting 2.4 billion global mobile players by the end of 2019. It already accounts for 47% of the worldwide gaming market, besting console and PC. No wonder we've seen the rise of gaming smartphones, a class of phones ...more
Some people believe that art makes artists immortal, and now one of the best known performance artists on the planet is working on taking that immortality into the realm of augmented reality. Marina Abramovic is using volumetric capture technology, along with the Magic Leap O ...more
Location-based gaming company Niantic knows its business model is inextricably tied to the outdoors, so it is in its best interest to help preserve that environment to give players a place to play. So, for the second straight year, Niantic will encourage Pokémon GO to assist ...more
It recently came to light that a number of Android phones are unable to stream HD video through services like Netflix, Google Play Movies, and Amazon Prime Video. If you're worried that your phone may be affected, there's a simple tool you can use to find out for sure if you c ...more
While Black Friday shoppers found countless deals on all kinds of smartphones, one device was overtly left out of the price cuts — the iPhone X. Walmart was the only store to offer a promotion on the newest Apple device, and even then, it was difficult to find. Cyber Week appe ...more
Anyone who knows me well is aware that I am a cyberpunk junkie. The conflict between lowlifes, corporations, and the government, flavored with dystopian future, high technology, transhumanism, artificial intelligence, and noir storytelling, just does something for me. Since I ...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
Mira Reality unveiled the Mira Prism yesterday and people immediately got excited about it. The Mira Prism uses no electronics besides your iPhone and it works pretty simply. You have a semi-transparent screen in front of your face. Once you open the Mira app on your phone, y ...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
Carrier-branded Galaxy S8 models come with a ton of bloatware that you usually can't get rid of without rooting. If you dig a little deeper, however, there is a way to debloat your S8, and it's relatively hassle-free. In the past, we've recommended Package Disabler Pro for ge ...more
If anyone has every told you that they see music they listen to, they have synesthesia. It's a fascinating neurological phenomenon where people experience crossed responses to stimuli, and no one knows exactly how common this is. A rough estimate claims that one in every 5,000 ...more
Super Mario Run was released for iOS on December 15, 2016. Even though it debuted as a "free" app, almost all of the playable content was hidden behind a ridiculous $10 unlocking package. Despite coming with such a hefty price tag and receiving a two-star rating on the day of ...more
At any moment, you can open up Meerkat and start live-streaming a video from your smartphone, available for anyone to watch. Thanks to its popularity at SXSW and the backing of several big Hollywood players, the app just announced that it's receiving $14 million in funding. A ...more
Dropbox, the cloud backup tool that is a mainstay on many of our devices, has added two companion apps to its service. Earlier today, we showed you a glimpse into a new testing version of the Gmail app, with features like pinning and snoozing to keep your inbox in check. Now, ...more
Whenever a new version of a phone comes out, there's always that one cool feature you wish you had on yours. For me, that's Group Play. On the Samsung Galaxy S4, you can easily share music, games, photos, and files to multiple devices using Group Play. While my older Galaxy S ...more
Last week, we covered a new, open-source live wallpaper (LWP) called Muzei, and less than a week later we have no less than twenty beautiful add-on extensions to the app. Muzei uses subtle blur and dim effects to create aesthetically pleasing LWPs. The app takes free works of ...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
In recent years, unwanted calls have become a top priority for the FCC. In 2016, analysts estimated that US customers received over 2.4 billion robocalls per month. As a result, the FCC has provided carriers new tools to combat this problem. The Federal Communications Commiss ...more
If you have a modern iPhone, you have an excellent video recorder at your disposal. Every iPhone since the 6S has the ability to shoot in 4K resolution, and each new iteration has brought new capabilities to the table. But even the best mobile shooter can use a little extra he ...more
When trying to get fit, something that can easily be overlooked is your overall sleep quality. Your body needs sleep to recharge and it helps to maintain a healthy lifestyle, there's no denying it. Luckily, Google Fit can help you track your sleeping habits without having to j ...more
Apple unveiled the latest generation of its flagship earbuds, AirPods Pro, on Monday, Oct. 28. Aside from the increased price tag, new in-ear design, and wider charging case, the biggest change by far is in Active Noise Cancellation. Finally, we can listen to AirPods on a plan ...more
If we were to assign a theme for the 2019 edition of the Next Reality 30 (NR30), it might be something along the lines of, "What have you done for me lately?" Many of the top names in the industry from the 2018 edition remain the same, but their positions have shuffled. The p ...more
Comparing the present-day states of the consumer and enterprise sectors of augmented reality is like evaluating the merits of sports car versus work trucks. Like consumer AR, sports cars are sexy and exciting, but perhaps a bit impractical at times. On the other hand, enterpri ...more
Despite years of user complaints, OEMs are still preinstalling third-party apps on brand new devices. Even in 2019, you'll still find plenty of phones with Facebook preinstalled. What's worse, it's installed as a system app, so it can't normally be uninstalled without root acc ...more
Apple's iOS 11 release promises many improvements and fresh ideas. One of those new ideas is an image codec called HEIF (similar to HEVC for videos), designed to reduce the space photos take up on your iPhone. But it's so new that it's already causing issues with compatibility ...more
When you're an audiophile, managing music is a labor of love. Metadata, like artist names, album thumbnails, and genres, is attached to many digital audio files, though some of the songs in your library might not have such tags, and others may have missing or incorrect informa ...more
Ever since the Google Play Store removed its "Designed for tablets" section, it's been a lot harder to find good, tablet-optimized Android apps. Not that it was all that great to begin with considering that they used to list apps like Facebook and Twitter, which only have over ...more
Not many people use their phone exclusively for making calls or sending messages today. If you're an Android user, the chances are high that you're using your phone or tablet for work-related activities. However, the basic set of apps and services your device was shipped with ...more
Windows 10 has proved to be immensely popular (free upgrades certainly don't hurt), and with back to school time, there's a good chance you have a new computer running Microsoft's latest OS. You maybe you decided to go with a clean installation rather than an upgrade, or just ...more