Root

It's a modern day nightmare to accidentally reveal too much information on Facebook. I've inadvertently told the world my location more times than I can laugh off, and my friends haven't fared too well either. Just take a look at the requested app permissions next time you're ...more

Over the course of the past year, a lot of Android apps have added pull-to-refresh functionality. It's a very useful and intuitive gesture, because all you have to do to refresh the page you're viewing is scroll to the top of the screen, then slide your finger down one more ti ...more

Stadia is a lot like an Xbox or PS4, except there's no console — the games just stream from Google's servers to your phone, computer, or TV. But Stadia is limited to Pixel phones for right now, and when Google does expand support, it will still only be for select phones. Thank ...more

Transition animations are an essential element of any mobile operating system. They give the user a sense of what's happening on the screen, where the apps are coming from, and where they're going. The stock transition animations on the Nexus 5 are some of the most boring one ...more

There was once a time when everyone scoffed at the turmeric tonic tea sold at the coffee shop I work at. Funny, because as of recently, we seem to be selling out. How can this be explained? Beyoncé must have been spotted buying turmeric beverages on the cover of some celebrity ...more

Dungeon Defenders is the most exciting craft game on the Fall 2011 release schedule. I got a chance to play it at PAX in August and interviewed developers Trendy Entertainment last month. After more than a year of publishing difficulty and delay, the game finally came out on P ...more

In an effort to make things simple and more secure, Google decided to slim down the power menu in Android 5.0. What once provided a quick link to shut your device down, turn on Airplane mode, and toggle volume states, has now been relegated to a simple power switch. Lucky for ...more

There are so many mods we can apply using a custom recovery. From themes to bug fixes and feature ports, a typical rooted user spends a decent chunk of time in TWRP Recovery. As often as we use TWRP, it's high time we showed the ZIP-flashing software a little love itself. Usi ...more

Believe it or not, capturing a beautiful shot of a vehicle is more difficult than you think. Sure, you can just snap a photo, but capturing the design, detail, and essence of the car is a whole other story. Lighting, location, settings, and angles are play into how well the ph ...more

We spend over 30 percent of our lifetimes sleeping—yet it never seems like enough, does it? Distractions ranging from work issues to personal relationships keep our minds racing well after they should be shutting down for the night, and the onset of smartphones has only added ...more

Maybe you've had a long day... or maybe you just want to treat yo' self. So you head to your local watering hole for some tasty, tasty liquor. Your current fave on the cocktail list is a drink of something strong with bitters; you don't know what bitters are, but damn if that ...more

Have an HTC smartphone? Chances are that some of your stored personal data has been hijacked by malicious apps on your device. Android apps that have permission to access the Internet, which is pretty much every ad-supported app out there, can snag valuable information such as ...more

Ever since the announcement of the Razer Phone, a wave of gaming smartphones started to hit the market. With ASUS being such a big name in gaming, it made sense for them to throw their hat in the ring. The result is the ROG Phone. And with this first try, ASUS has topped the r ...more

For the days when you don't want to, or don't have time to wash your hair, dry shampoo can be a lifesaver. There are tons of commercial brands that make them, but personally, I've always had better luck with homemade ones. Read on to learn how to make your own dry shampoo for ...more

Now is the time to act if you've been in the market for some must-have Android apps but felt like the price was a little out of your range. The Google Play Store is running a sale so you can pick up some high-quality paid apps—including the popular Nova Launcher Prime and Powe ...more

In the iPhone modding scene, the Checkm8 bootrom exploit, by developer axi0mX, led to a powerful jailbreaking tool known as Checkra1n. With it, you can jailbreak a variety of iPhone models without worrying about it getting patched later on. But in the past, it required you to ...more

With smartphone screens getting bigger by the generation, one-handed mode mods are becoming rather prevalent. Most of these function by shrinking the screen to a more manageable size, but this is actually kind of boring when you think about it. Separating itself from the pack ...more

Out of nowhere, Google released a preview build of the upcoming Android N release back in March—a full two months early. As if that weren't enough excitement for one day, they topped themselves by following up that announcement with the debut of a new "Android Beta" program th ...more

Figuring out someone's password, pattern, or PIN isn't very difficult—simply watching over their shoulder or following the oil marks left across their screen is enough to figure them out and bypass whatever lock screen security they have. Sure, you can enter your code in fast ...more

Widget toggles, or "power toggles" as they're often called, have been around for quite a while. They serve their purpose nicely as an easy way to add switches to your home screen or notification area for functions that don't come with the stock software on your device. As fun ...more

OnePlus is on track to deliver Android 8.0 Oreo to its flagship users by Q1 2018. Open Beta 1 was released for the 5T in late December, and we just received Open Beta 2. But this update isn't just tweaks and bug fixes, OnePlus has included a few new features to enhance the And ...more

The king of all Xposed modules is alive and kicking on Android Lollipop. GravityBox received an update over the weekend that will bring its bevy of UI tweaks to folks who have installed the framework on their Android 5.0+ devices. Most of the tweaks that helped GravityBox ris ...more

You're lost.  You're cold, thirsty— you're hungry.  What if you're not much of a hunter?  Maybe you're a gatherer.  So, then you'll eat plants.  But what if you eat something poisonous?  What if you're allergic to it? Okay, so not many people will find themselves in a situati ...more

The yogis of the internet have started a wonderful food trend that has everyone wanting to eat healthy—gorgeous buddha bowls. Okay, so maybe not everyone, but a lot of people are definitely entranced by these beautiful, multicolored meals. Buddha bowls, also known as rainbow ...more

Plantar warts are non-cancerous growths that can be found on the heel or ball of the foot, and in some cases, even on your fingers. They most often are very painful and are hard to get rid of. Most removing methods can be very painful and uncomfortable. You will need: Apple ...more

The reveal of Magic Leap One: Creator Edition brought with it some insight into the path the device took from prototype to "final" design. By comparing notes with the Rolling Stone article on Magic Leap with other reports on comparable milestones, we get a clearer picture of ...more

We live in a time where privacy is rare and our files can be easily accessed by just about anyone. Having your phone protected by a passcode is great, but if someone figures it out, they can easily access anything on your phone. That may not be a big problem for many of us, b ...more

Don't believe what you read on the internet, especially today, when web giants like Amazon, Google, and the like showcase their otherworldly products and services. If they seem too good to be true, they probably are—but that doesn't make them any less fun. Keep checking back ...more

If you're as bad at locking your Nexus up as I am, you have the "slide" option set for your screen lock. It may not be the most secure option, but it's definitely the easiest way to unlock your device while being able to utilize lock screen widgets. Now look at your lock scre ...more

You can do many things on your Nexus 7 to make life easier, like auto-categorize photos and perform on-the-fly calculations, but one thing that you should really have is more swipe gestures. By adding custom swipe gestures, you'll be able to navigate your device better, skip m ...more

Skype is one of the most popular messaging and video chat services for a good reason—it's packed to the brim with tons of cool features. But one bit of functionality that Microsoft left out is the ability to block friend requests from people that aren't in your contacts, which ...more

BlackBerry has formally announced the arrival of its flagship, the KeyOne, during Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona. The all-Android KeyOne looks distinctly BlackBerry, with its 4.5" screen and physical QWERTY keyboard. Here's the lowdown on this elegant handset that hea ...more

As the granddaddy of all gesture-based keyboards, Swype has seen quite a few updates in its day. A recent version bump, however, added a feature that has been universally panned by Swype users. In an attempt to integrate emojis into their gesture-based input method, Swype dev ...more

Most of the time, the LED notification light on the front of your Android device just sits there doing nothing. Other than that brief period of time between when you receive a notification and when you turn your screen on, it's practically useless for anything other than showi ...more

Stock is a crucial ingredient for so many recipes: soups, gravies, and risottos depend on stock; quinoa and rice are both more flavorful when cooked with it, too. So, chances are that broth is a staple on your weekly shopping list. But I'm here to tell you that it shouldn't b ...more

Welcome, in this tutorial we shall we looking at creating a safe(r) way to back up your important files. The contents we will be covering are as follows; Creating a partition Updating the /etc/fstab file Mounting a file system with Python Copying the contents of a file system ...more

YouTube makes money hand over fist every year selling ad space to companies, but unless you're reaping those benefits, they can be pretty annoying. Luckily, there is a simple way to get rid them on your rooted HTC One with Xposed and YouTube AdAway. YouTube AdAway is an Xpose ...more

I'm always looking for the best apps and services for my Android, and that means sticking strictly to the Google Play Store is a no-go. If you're like me and tend to install a lot of APKs (application files), you're probably tired of seeing the "Install" confirmation that alwa ...more

Carriers like to distinguish their Android phones from the competition by making small changes to the interface here and there. This practice is so common that Android now has a built-in system for managing these small tweaks. A series of XML files known as CSC (customer soft ...more

When my Nexus 5 received the Lollipop update, one of the first things I noticed was how subtle and quiet the new lock and unlock sounds were. Sure, this is a minor quibble, but it's also an easy fix. So I put together a flashable ZIP with the (in my opinion) much cooler lock ...more

Food is the meeting place of left and right brainers: Culinary arts call for creativity, but is also deeply rooted in the What, Why and How of basic science—baking powder vs. baking soda, the rising of dough, the falling of a cake, etc. Below, two plays on left brain principle ...more

Electronic Arts (EA) and Hasbro have always been a little slow at adapting Scrabble for the cyber culture. They failed to beat Scrabulous to the Facebook market by a whole year, but managed to save face by targeting the mobile market, specifically iPhone and iPod touch, making ...more

In my last tutorial I very briefly introduced Zanti , but in this tutorial I will start to show its many features. The first step on hacking is recon . You could use Nmap , but the problem with Nmap on Android is that by itself, in order to gain full functionality your phone m ...more

People fundamentally distrust magicians. And they should. The illusions they proffer are just that, illusions meant to astound rather than tangible interactions and results that have weight and meaning in our real world. Our lizard brains know this, and, no matter what the out ...more

Depending on your device, Android's power (aka restart) menu can range from utilitarian and boring to almost completely useless. Some devices don't even allow you to reboot, let alone reboot to recovery mode or Fastboot, and for such a centralized menu, the glaring lack of Mat ...more

OxygenOS is often described as one of the best skins for Android on the market. It's fast, clean, and has a ton of useful features that appeal to just about everyone. However, it's also faced a significant issue for the longest time — overly aggressive battery optimizations th ...more

Deep down inside, Android is really just a fork of Linux, the popular open source desktop OS. You can see traces of its roots everywhere, and this lineage still holds a certain appeal with many Android fans. If you're in that boat, you'll love the newest notes app we just foun ...more

As of 2016, there are approximately 1.85 billion Android smartphones worldwide. This growing popularity has led to an increasing number hacks and cyber attacks against the OS. Unfortunately, Android users need more protection than what is offered by Google. The good thing is t ...more

OnePlus will be releasing a new phone in the second half of 2018, specifically, an upgrade to their T-series. Over the past two years, #T versions have come out about five months after their predecessors and have included small updates that fix any problems from the previous O ...more

There are a lot of mods for your Nexus 7 when it comes to improving and streamlining its overall functionality. You could add custom swipe gestures, conserve battery power, and even run multiple apps at the same time. However, efficiency and performance aren't the only reason ...more