Noted analyst Gene Munster is predicting that Apple's initial entry into the augmented reality wearables category will be a year later than previous reports have estimated. The managing partner at Loup Ventures published a report on Thursday regarding Apple's new product cate ...more
Starting with Android 8.0 Oreo, the process of sideloading apps has changed dramatically. Google removed the old "Unknown Sources" setting and replaced it with a permission that you have to grant to individual apps. It's really an interesting security feature. In the old days ...more
The Galaxy S9 is an audio powerhouse. It has the first set of stereo speakers on a Samsung flagship, and it even comes standard with a set of AKG-tuned earbuds that would normally cost $99. But if you want to further enhance your audio experience, there's a feature that will c ...more
Google just released Android 9.0 Pie, but the Android community is already working its magic. Developer Quinny899 quickly ported the updated Pixel Launcher from the new build, so you can try it out on other phones right now. The only requirements here are that you're running ...more
Last week, the first possible image of the upcoming OnePlus 6 leaked. It was met with mixed reactions, most notably for its apparent iPhone X-style "notch." OnePlus fans seem concerned that the company is implementing a design choice based on what it thinks is trending, not ne ...more
Samsung's Galaxy S9 was recently announced with features like AR Emoji and Dual Aperture, but great functionality lives underneath them — such as the ability to have your home screen auto-rotate to landscape mode. It's a nice feature, but with a little work, you can already do ...more
Not all microwaves are created equal, so when you use the recommended cooking time on any microwaveable meal, chances are you're actually cooking the food too much or not enough. And unless you're really good at mental math or have a virtual assistant that's smarter than Siri ...more
When it comes to mobile gaming, you have a lot of fantastic options. Most flagship devices on the market, such as the Galaxy Note 8, iPhone 8 Plus, or OnePlus 5T, are perfectly capable of giving you an excellent, immersive experience. If you're looking for the ultimate way to ...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
Huawei has been on a roll recently. They just became the second largest smartphone manufacturer in September, passing Apple and trailing only Samsung. Shortly after, they announced their new Kirin 970 flagship SoC to rival the Snapdragon 835, then followed that up by announcin ...more
The Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL were built by different manufacturers. This is pretty common knowledge among Android fans at this point — Google's smaller Pixel 2 was built by HTC, while the larger Pixel 2 XL was built by LG. What would the Pixel 2 XL look like if HTC had followed ...more
If you're following the classic Halloween playbook closely, you've already got a costume or three picked out, you've binged-watched your favorite horror movies, and you've likely visited a haunted house. But it's 2017, so how about trying something new, like a haunted house th ...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
Clearly, the next big battlefield for tech gamesmanship between Apple and Google will be augmented reality. While the announcement of the new iPhones by Apple may have underwhelmed in the AR department, they did highlight their new ARCore platform and Core ML image recognitio ...more
Have you ever been listening to the radio and a song comes on that you can't identify? But you're driving, so you can't open your phone and use your favorite app to find the song's name. Well, with a feature called "Now Playing" on Pixel phones, Google has solved this problem. ...more
If you want to root your phone, it's a huge plus. If you want to install a custom ROM like LineageOS, it's an absolute must-have. Custom kernels like ElementalX, custom recoveries like TWRP — none of this happens unless you buy a phone with an unlockable bootloader. While we ...more
Netflix offers three different tiers of service. The good news is that no matter which subscription plan you choose, the available content is the same. Whether you choose the cheapest plan or the most expensive, you'll be able to watch any TV show or movie in Netflix's library ...more
There are so many tips and tricks on how to improve your Instagram photos, but one really easy way is to use the HDR camera setting. HDR is high dynamic range imaging and takes three exposures of a photo — overexposed, underexposed, and one in the middle at the normal exposure ...more
During the opening keynote of their Worldwide Developers Conference today in San Jose, Apple introduced the ARKit for the new iOS 11 that will bring augmented reality apps to millions of compatible iPhones and iPads. ARKit will allow developers to leverage motion tracking, su ...more
Updated 5/2/17: CultofMac reports analysts at Deutsche Bank are confirming the delays. The analysts believe the delays are due to "component shortages and technical challenges." This would corroborate the rumors listed below. We here at Gadget Hacks will bring you more on this ...more
Netmarble's ChronoBlade, a mobile role-playing game, has made its way to iOS and Android by way of a soft launch that will make it exclusive to users in Canada and Singapore for a couple of months. Its console-quality graphics and extra features will surely make it a hit when ...more
The rumors surrounding the next iPhone and Apple's ambitions toward augmented reality have been going on for months, and a fresh development brings back the idea of Apple's Smart Connector bringing the two together. The Verifier, an Israeli news site, claims the next suite of ...more
Great news, zombie killers! Zombie Gunship's long overdue sequel, Zombie Gunship Survival, has finally arrived for iOS and Android devices as a soft launch available for download in the Philippines—which means that with a little tinkering, you can play the new game in any coun ...more
Dynasty Warriors has finally been unleashed on the world of mobile gaming. The latest installment in the popular series is called Dynasty Warriors: Unleashed, and it sends you rampaging through armies using a variety of devastating attacks, all while collecting and upgrading o ...more
There's a lot of conflicting information out there when it comes to the best habits for charging a smartphone's battery, so let's clear some of that up right off the bat. Lithium ion batteries (the type used in most modern electronics) start to lose their ability to hold a cha ...more
For some time now, there has been quite a bit of speculation as to when the selection of augmented and mixed reality head-mounted displays would begin to trickle out to the public. Pricing, availability, and software selection are all issues that will have to be addressed befo ...more
Bluetooth 5 was announced and made officially available on December 7, 2016. It comes with a handful of improvements to speed, range, maximum device connectivity, and anti-interference from other nearby devices. While this might be great for those special few who use Bluetooth ...more
No matter which smartphone you buy, it will come with an internet browser preinstalled. Depending on your OEM, the default browser might be called Samsung Internet, HTC Internet, Silk Browser by Amazon, ASUS Browser, or Google Chrome—there's just so many stock browsers availab ...more
There are two things you're not supposed to talk about in a social setting: religion and politics. When it comes to the latter, though, a certain orange-hued reality TV star has made it all but impossible to stay mum about the goings-on in DC. For a minimum of four years, we' ...more
The US Department of Education has put together a competition called the EdSim Challenge with a $680,000 purse to facilitate next-gen education. The event calls upon augmented and virtual reality, as well as video game developers, to bring immersive simulation concepts to prep ...more
The reviews for the Google Pixel phone have hit the web. There's a lot of praise, but not all are so positive. We've collected some of the best takes on the new devices from the top tech sites around. Don't Miss: Get the Entire Google Pixel Experience with One Simple Mod Eng ...more
Google makes Android, but now, Google makes its own phones, too. Until this point, they've always stayed on the software side of things and let Samsung and friends handle the hardware, but their new Pixel phones are changing all of that. Related: The Pixel Exemplifies Google' ...more
There's a new operating system on the horizon, and this one's so big that it may actually live up to its galactic moniker. Andromeda, a merging of Android and Chrome OS, has the potential to bring Google to the ubiquitous status that Microsoft's Windows enjoyed in the '80s and ...more
Some manufacturers, like Samsung and LG, have had split-screen multitasking on their custom versions of Android for years. But starting with Android Nougat, Google added this functionality to AOSP, which means that all phones and tablets running Android 7.0 or higher will now ...more
When Apple announced its new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus models in San Francisco, one of the biggest new features was an "IP67" water-resistance rating. Couple that with a few official renderings that show the new iPhone covered in water, and you'd probably arrive at one logica ...more
These days, the user experience on stock Android is a lot more refined and polished than manufacturer skins like Samsung's TouchWiz or HTC's Sense. This is mostly due to Material Design, the look and feel that Google implemented back in Android Lollipop, which has finally star ...more
Switching between mobile operating systems is fairly easy, but there are a few bumps along the way that you're bound to encounter. One of the first issues you'll run into is that the contacts on your old iPhone don't easily sync with your new Android device. So if you've rece ...more
Many midrange phones are being manufactured without a gyroscope sensor—the Moto X Play, third-generation Moto G, and several of Samsung's Galaxy Grand models, among others. It's not exactly an essential smartphone sensor, and leaving this out keeps the phone's price point down ...more
Imagine if you combined Tasker with your favorite live wallpaper—that's roughly the gist of a new app from developer feedK. With this one installed, your home screen background will finally be aware of its surroundings. Don't Miss: Top 8 Free Wallpaper Apps for Android Afte ...more
Samsung's latest flagship devices, the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, as well as the Note7, have a useful feature called "Always On Display." With this one enabled, the clock and some other information will continue to be shown on the screen, even when you lock your phone or turn your ...more
Starting with version 6.0 Marshmallow, Android now supports fingerprint scanners natively. This change has effectively opened the floodgates, and now almost every flagship Android device includes a fingerprint scanner out of the box. But if you passed up on the opportunity to ...more
Apple has stepped up its emoji game lately, and as a result, there are several iPhone emojis that don't show up on Android devices running older firmware. However, Google responded by adding a next-gen set of Unicode 9.0 emojis to its Android Nougat preview build, meaning that ...more
Being able to customize the look and feel of your device is the main reason a lot of folks choose Android over iOS. And perhaps the single biggest way to visually overhaul your phone or tablet's UI is to apply an icon pack, which can liven up your home screen with bright color ...more
We knew it was coming eventually, but this is a bit out of left field—early builds of the next version of Android have been released almost two months ahead of schedule. Android N, as it's being called for now, is already available for the last two generations of Nexus devices ...more
Although lots of the bigger hotel chains are lessening the restrictions they put on their room TVs, some smaller ones are still taking measures to prevent you from plugging in computers or streaming devices into an HDMI port. However, there are a few steps you can take to bypa ...more
LG got in on the action at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona by unveiling its new G5 handset on Sunday, February 21st. It will be the first publicly available modular smartphone by a top tech giant. Video: . The Magic Slot The highlight of the G5 is undoubtedly the "Magic Sl ...more
If you've ever prematurely dismissed all of your push notifications before you got a chance to read each one, you know how annoying it can be to dig through all of your apps to try and find the one with the missed notification. Android does have a built-in notification histor ...more
So you dropped your smartphone and the screen cracked. Again. Just the thought of sending it out for repair or buying a new phone is driving you mad. But if it's only the glass that is cracked, and you're a DIY-type with experience disassembling and reassembling gadgets, you ...more
When you have some form of lock screen security enabled, Android makes sure that you don't have to fumble around to enter your pattern, PIN, or password before you can call 911 in an emergency. It does this by adding an "Emergency Call" button to the bottom of the screen—but a ...more
Samy Kamkar, the security researcher known for the MySpace Worm and his combination lock cracking skills (using an online calculator), is back—and this time, he's after your credit cards! Well, not really, but his latest project, dubbed MagSpoof, can spoof any magnetic stripe ...more
For a lot of would-be cord cutters, the lack of streaming local sports is the only hurdle that needs to be cleared before they can sever all ties with big cable. This is why it was a huge victory for us anti-cable folks when Yahoo announced that they would be hosting the first ...more
Manufacturers like Samsung and LG have added their own implementation of multi-window features to Android for years now, but with the release of version 6.0 Marshmallow, Google has finally gotten around to working the same feature into stock Android. Don't Miss: How to Enable ...more
The Galaxy S6 already has one of the best cameras on the market, but a few minor annoyances still linger. Full-sized photos are stored with heavy compression that can cause artifacting, burst mode shots aren't taken at 100% quality, and the camera flash cannot be used when you ...more
Many Android utilities use Android Debug Bridge, or ADB for short, to send commands from a computer over to your phone or tablet. This enables such utilities to run terminal commands that, in some cases, wouldn't be possible on Android without root access. Before getting star ...more
Samsung is known for its added features, but occasionally, these can cross the line between functionality and bloat. For many users, this is the case with the "S Finder" and "Quick connect" buttons that are hard-coded into the notification tray on most Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge va ...more
Exclusive to the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, "Information stream" is a screen feature that lets you see quick, at-a-glance information with a simple swipe while the screen is off. It also supports plug-ins, or additional streams of information that can come from third-party source ...more
Samsung has a long-standing reputation for packing their devices with lots of added functionality, and the Galaxy S6 Edge is no exception. It comes with a nifty feature called "Information stream," which allows you to get quick, at-a-glance information by swiping the edge of y ...more
With the Galaxy S6 Edge, the curved display is mainly an aesthetic feature. Unlike the Galaxy Note Edge, Samsung didn't include many software features to take advantage of its unique design, outside of the scrolling tickers and night clock. For instance, with the Note Edge, yo ...more
Auto manufacturers are slowly starting to debut models with Google's new Android Auto software baked into the dashboard console. Starting with the 2016 model year, we should see vehicles from Honda, Ford, Chevrolet, and many others sporting the new software. Now, many manufac ...more
If you want to sell all of the old electronics lying around your home, it takes a lot of work. If you go the eBay route, you have to take tons of pictures, describe it accurately, wait for a week until someone bids on it (or not), then package it, ship it, and wait for feedbac ...more