Mozilla's Firefox has always been a highly praised internet browser. Since it's open-source, users know what they're getting without any secrecy. It's got plenty of features that are unmatched by any of its competitors on mobile. However, speed and performance have always been ...more
Shortly after we detailed several indicators that the Galaxy S8 Oreo Beta Program would begin rolling out in the month of November, we now have a full changelog for the update. Many users on Reddit already found references to the beta in the Samsung+ and Samsung Members app. ...more
While ARKit and ARCore are poised to bring AR experiences to millions of mobile devices, one company is poised to anchor those experiences anywhere in the world with just a set of geographic coordinates. The geospatial augmented reality platform Aireal enables developers to p ...more
What makes YouTube such a special platform is that anyone and everyone can upload their own content. Big players upload their videos to the same site that the little guy does. But what if you're a little guy who has never uploaded a video before? Or, what if you're a regular ...more
Ah, wine. The bouquet fills your nose. The rich finish fills your mouth with soft flavors of oak and raspberries. The wine warms your belly and soothes your mind. Yeast and their biochemical factory help create this feast for your senses. Thanks to a research group from France ...more
Many new parents will tell you how hard it is to name a baby. Some have stories of how they knew what the name of their child would be from before conception, only to change their mind when they were born. Sometimes new babies can go weeks without a name since there is an endl ...more
Augmented, mixed, and virtual reality are all a little bit different, but as many expect—including Metavision—the continuum of our next realities will converge and give us one head-mounted display (HMD) platform that can do it all. If Vrvana, a Canadian company building AR and ...more
During the lead up to Samsung's Note7's release, rumors swirled about a leaked "Grace UX" interface replacing Samsung's maligned TouchWiz Android skin. In the end, this seems to have been nothing more than an internal code name that Samsung was using to test a few new icons an ...more
Android's stock battery menu is pretty decent. You can see which apps have been using the most power, and you can tell when your CPU was awake or asleep, among other things. But a lot of times, battery-sucking services will get lumped under the generic "Android System" header, ...more
Google has a lesser-known Android app called Device Assist that might just be one of the most useful programs the company has ever published. It offers interactive guides and general tech support for Android, plus it can diagnose your device and help you fix any issues it find ...more
Turns out, you no longer need third-party flight tracking apps to get information on yours or others' flights—your iPhone and Mac can now give you flight details right from your Mail, Notes, and Messages apps. Apple's flight data detectors were baked into iOS 9 and OS X El Ca ...more
Apple's latest mobile operating system, iOS 9, may not be the huge overhaul that iOS 8 was, but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of new features. In fact, there are a ton of subtle changes that you may not notice right away. Here's a rundown of all the coolest new feature ...more
There are few apps on my iPhone that I visit on a daily basis, and one of them is Drippler, the discovery and news app that tells you everything you need to know about your device. I've actually been using Drippler on my iPhone since it was released back in March of this year ...more
The year 2020 was a pivotal span of time during which the word "virtual" took on a brand new meaning. Instead of referring to VR or augmented reality, the term was hijacked to describe meeting across long distances through a variety of software tools, most often through video. ...more
We've been predicting the rush of augmented reality wearable makers from China for a couple of years, and now it looks like it's in full swing, with one of the most promising entrants coming from startup Pacific Future. The China-based company was on the CES show floor this w ...more
Facebook and its Oculus subsidiary have been open about their intentions to bring AR wearables into the mainstream for some time now. Nonetheless, when Oculus talked about its AR plans at the Oculus 6 keynote presentation on Wednesday, it still managed to surprise its audienc ...more
For those about to rock, Live Nation salutes you, now with augmented reality. This week, at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival of Creativity in France, the live entertainment giant unveiled a suite of AR experiences that music festivals and their sponsors will be able to d ...more
After announcing at Google I/O 2019 that augmented reality content would come to Search, Google revealed how it would make that happen with the latest round of updates to ARCore. Scene Viewer, the company's web-based AR format, enables developers to embed gITF 3D models into ...more
Apple just released the second public beta for iOS 12.3 today, Tuesday, April 9, one day after the release of the iOS 12.3 developer beta 2. This update introduces new Japanese "Date & Time" updates as well as changes to Wallet transactions. Overall, iOS 12.3 includes Apple TV ...more
Android's settings menu is actually pretty daunting. There are options for nearly everything, so in the sea of various menus and submenus, it's easy to overlook important privacy and security settings. On Google's Pixel phones in particular, there are 20 such settings that you ...more
Sileo is an ideal marketplace for developers to showcase apps, tweaks, and themes that Apple would never allow in the App Store. While a majority of these packages are free to try out, there are jailbreak apps that cost money for your iPhone. But actually paying for mods can b ...more
The story of Meta and its Meta 2 augmented reality headset isn't over, there's a new development that could impact its ultimate fate. During the waning days of January, the US District Court of Delaware finally weighed in with an update in the patent infringement case against ...more
Move over, cosmetics companies. The athletic footwear industry wants to be able to give their customers the opportunity to try on products in augmented reality as well. A new mobile app from augmented reality commerce company Wannaby, appropriately named Wanna Kicks, uses sma ...more
If you've blocked out your calendar to watch the NHL All-Star Game this weekend, then you might be excited to know that USA Today has given its readers the opportunity to meet Washington Capital's John Carlson in augmented reality. And if you didn't know that the NHL All-Star ...more
Can you trust every user you come across on TikTok? The answer to that may depend on how use the service, but the real question is — can you trust every user that sees your content? Not everyone on TikTok is someone you want viewing or interacting with your content, and there' ...more
Augmented reality optics maker WaveOptics has just infused its operations with a fresh round of funding to facilitate its objective of bringing consumer-grade smartglasses at a $600 price point to market in 2019. On Tuesday, the London-based company announced that it has clos ...more
The company behind augmented reality's first real gaming hit, Pokémon GO, is quietly making moves toward supporting the rapidly growing smartglasses space that may one day move its content away from smartphones and tablets and onto AR lenses positioned on your face. On Friday ...more
Instagram introduced a new feature in September 2018 that lets you share other users' Stories via Instagram Direct, the app's private messaging tool for solo and group messages. Problem is, it works both ways, so whenever you add to your ephemeral Story, everybody that sees it ...more
If you're hungry for pizza and ordering from Domino's in Australia, you can now see what your pie will look like in augmented reality before placing your order. Available through the App Store and Google Play, the updated Domino's mobile app includes New Pizza Chef, an entert ...more
Ingress, the godfather of location based-AR games developed by Pokémon GO creator Niantic Labs, is getting a new lease on life via Ingress Prime, a reboot of the game built on the Niantic Real World Platform. After teasing the reboot late last year, Niantic launched the new g ...more
A major obstacle to the mainstream acceptance of smartglasses is the current inability able to smoosh processors, sensors, and batteries into a pair of frames that look cool. Wearables maker Thalmic is hinting that it may have figured it all out. North is Thalmic's consumer s ...more
While most kids his age are busy playing Fortnite, 11-year-old Yumo Soerianto is developing augmented reality games. Kids like Soerianto are the future of the augmented reality field — they'll likely be coming into their own as professional developers right as AR technologies ...more
The iPhone XR has touched down alongside the XS and XS Max, and it utilizes tried and tested materials found on the iPhone 8, while being molded in the same vein as the iPhone X. The budget-friendlier flagship comes with its own set of design elements to set it apart from its ...more
While we've seen Snapchat apply sky segmentation to AR content, the makers of the Blue Sky Paint app have applied similar capabilities to create and share airborne art. Published by AR developer Kevaid and available now on the App Store, Blue Sky Paint is similar to Similar t ...more
Just in time for Women's Equality Day on Aug. 26, Treasury Wine Estates is breaking out a line of wines with augmented reality experiences that pay tribute to historically famous women. When scanned with the Living Wine Labels app for iOS or Android, the emBRAZEN wine labels ...more
Despite its fifth-place finish in our ranking of the best transcriber apps on iOS, Voicera is still worth highlighting due to numerous factors that set it apart from the crowd. Besides being completely free to use on both iPhone and Android, the app's AI-based transcription se ...more
With summer in full swing, these Snapchat lenses are as hot as ever. With people celebrating the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Snapchat contests that earn could earn you a free ride to Comic Con, and the everyday innovation that comes out of Lens Studio, there's something for ever ...more
Escape rooms, those real world puzzle games that challenge teams to solve a mystery and gain their freedom from a locked room, are all the rage right now. But augmented reality games such as The Lockdown could make them obsolete. Available now via the App Store and Google Pla ...more
Uber as a service is great, but using it requires you to hand over your location data to the company. What's worse is that you may be giving them precious access to your GPS even when don't have the Uber app open. This is both a major privacy issue and a drain on your battery. ...more
Electronics maker Epson is courting developers to its Moverio smartglasses with an updated software development kit (SDK) and integration with a web-based tool for publishing augmented reality experiences. Announced today at the Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara, the new ve ...more
Confirming a previous report from last week, Qualcomm announced its Snapdragon X1 platform designed for augmented and virtual reality devices during an event at the Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara on Tuesday, with Meta and Vuzix among the first manufacturers to adopt it. ...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
You're at the bar, but your friend can't find you. You could call them, but that wouldn't feel very 2018. Instead, let your iPhone do the talking. Right in the Messages app, you can easily send your friend your current location — all without interrupting the friends you're han ...more
Spring is finally here (in earnest now), and a new batch of great augmented reality Snapchat lenses have come along with it. New life has been breathed into meme culture with the spring lineup of TV shows, Mark Zuckerberg's ongoing investigation, and college kids with too much ...more
Privacy is a hot topic. In the wake of Facebook's data scandal, many want to safeguard their personal info. On the other hand, we all gain a certain amount of convenience by using services administered by huge companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter. Google Assistant coll ...more
If it had come out just a week earlier, around April 1, no one would have believed it. But it's true, Leap Motion has developed its own prototype augmented reality headset, and it looks pretty wild. On Monday, April 9, the company unveiled Project North Star, a device that th ...more
Last week, Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz teased his Twitter followers with some "fun and cool stuff" to share in the coming days. On Monday, he made good on that promise, sort of. If you're a fan of Sigur Rós, he hit the right note, but if you were expecting to see what the com ...more
While VR promises to take gamers to another world, AR has the potential to bring the game elements into your own neighborhood or home. Just in time for Halloween, ARZombi places your living room into the epicenter of a zombie outbreak, with your ARKit-compatible iPhone or iPa ...more
We may not know what Magic Leap's product looks like. And we haven't received even a "save the date" for its launch. But we know that it will display mixed reality comics from Madefire when whatever it is arrives. Announced as part of the Future of Comics in New Realities pan ...more
The Free App of the Week is as cool as it sounds. Apple features one app every week on the front page of its App Store that comes completely free. Once you download it, you have access to all future updates, just like you would if you purchased the app in full. Sounds great ri ...more
Your iPhone has a lot of personal information contained within it, so of course you want your device to be secure. You don't want that information getting into the wrong hands — or any hands other than your own, for that matter. This guide breaks down the new privacy settings ...more
Whether you used it to remind yourself to buy a game or to store away that app recommendation that your friend begged you to download, the "Wish List" in the iOS App Store was a useful tool to keep track of new apps you might have wanted to install on your iPhone. But how can ...more
Generally speaking, in terms of modern devices, the more simple you make an interface to navigate, the more successful the product is. The product could be a coffee maker, an electric piano, a smartphone, or computer operating system. This very idea was one reason that Window ...more
This morning Google announced ARCore, an SDK for Android devices that will allow augmented reality developers to add new functionality to Android 7.0 and up, all without any special hardware other than the camera of a phone. While Apple released ARKit into beta at WDCC a few ...more
Back in 2009, largely due to the sheer number of users demanding it, Spotify added an amazing little feature — the ability to disable volume normalization. While the feature is nothing more than a toggle on the visual front, the audible difference is far superior and moons apa ...more
More often than not, road trips will include unforeseen pit stops that have to be made, no matter how well prepared you are. In the past, making an unscheduled stop may have led to headaches and delays when your navigation app got off track, but thanks to a feature in Google M ...more
If you are fond of going live or watching live videos on Facebook, then you've probably experienced a number of viewers commenting. Sometimes these comments are good. Sometimes ... well, sometimes we could all go without them. If you want to stop a specific viewer from commen ...more
Pokémon GO's augmented reality journey is continuing with Apple's newly announced ARKit. It's no surprise considering Pokémon GO is the largest mainstream augmented reality game, with 500 million downloads. Apple mentioned Pokémon GO specifically during WWDC event last week, ...more
At this point, I'm ready to give Apple CEO Tim Cook a piece of my mind. The hype surrounding the iPhone 8 is crazy, and rumors are circulating constantly. So many different things have been said about its release date that no one can even keep track anymore. If Cook could thro ...more
At Apple's yearly event, the World Wide Developers Conference, the tech giant finally announced their decision to enter the augmented reality space. Through adding basic AR functionality to the beta release of Xcode 9, the development environment for Mac computers, as well as ...more