Video Phone

In one of the worst-kept secrets of the upcoming Mobile World Congress, Google has officially released ARCore on the Play Store for owners of the latest flagship Android smartphones. In a blog post on Friday, Google promoted its augmented reality toolkit for Android from deve ...more

|UPDATE: The event is now over and we've learned all there is to know about the new Galaxy S9 and S9+. But if you're still interested in watching Samsung's presentation, we've left the replay video embedded below. Galaxy fans, listen up — Samsung is set to announce its new S9 ...more

Security-minded users can reduce the risk of phishing by enabling Advanced Protection on important Google accounts, requiring a U2F security token to log in. Using these keys isn't intuitive on most popular smartphone platforms, and you can find yourself locked out if you don' ...more

With the Super Bowl just days away, it seems appropriate to draw parallels between football and the professional sport of technology business, or, more specifically, the augmented reality segment. Like the Patriots and Eagles, businesses have to deal with the media, as Apple ...more

While there aren't as many ways to customize your iPhone like there is on Android, there are still a lot of apps out there that can help streamline and enhance your experience beyond Apple's own default options — and we've hand-picked over 100 essentials. No matter if you've ...more

T-Mobile has just pushed out a new update to the Samsung Galaxy Note 8, bringing the build number to N950USQU2BQLA. Here's what to expect. In addition to the December security update, which patches 10 issues found with Samsung's software, as well as 11 critical problems for A ...more

Whenever you attend or remotely watch a major Apple event, you're likely to see Phil Schiller, the company's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, unveiling a brand new product on stage. Outside of an official event, Schiller is the second most likely person (after App ...more

A new stories archive feature appeared in the version 25 update for Instagram on both Android and iOS. This means you no longer need to save stories to your phone for later viewing, if you like doing that, but it also means all those stories are saved to your Instagram account ...more

Now that the holiday season has officially kicked off, Office Depot has updated its popular Elf Yourself app with a few new augmented reality options. But you'd be excused if you weren't overly thrilled with the implementation. For those who are unfamiliar with the app, Elf ...more

Essential recently launched their Android Oreo Beta Program, open to all owners of their PH-1 flagship. We detailed a quick and easy method for installing the beta on your device. With every beta program, there are bound to be plenty of new features and a few bugs, as we found ...more

Airgeddon is a multi-Bash network auditor capable of Wi-Fi jamming. This capability lets you target and disconnect devices from a wireless network, all without joining it. It runs on Kali, and we'll cover installing, configuring, and using its jamming functionalities on a smal ...more

When it comes to applying augmented reality to various business functions, as the saying goes, there's more than one way to skin a cat. When it comes to using augmented reality to communicate to customers, carmaker Genesis is opting to inform customers with their Virtual Guid ...more

As augmented reality becomes more and more integrated into the mainstream, people have been wondering the future of AR is going to look like. Jay Samit has a pretty clear idea. Samit is an expert in digital media innovation. He has been called a leader in digital "disruption" ...more

We use subtitles when we can't understand what's being spoken on screen, but most of the time it seems like those subtitles are out of our control. Maybe we find them too small, or even too large. Maybe the color is too faint, or the background too distracting. If only we coul ...more

Imagine walking up to enter a live event — but instead of pulling out a physical or mobile ticket to get admitted — you pull out your smartphone which lets out an ultrasonic sound tailored for you that lets you into the event. Yeah, that's what Ticketmaster is trying to do. ...more

The act of liking someone's really old Instagram post is called "deep-liking," which is pretty apt if you think about it. While going "deep" into older posts on the feed of your ex or crush or whoever, your finger may slip accidentally and double-tap on a photo or video that y ...more

WWDC 2017 is right around the corner, where Apple is expected to reveal iOS 11, the newest version of their mobile operating system. There have been many rumors floating around about what iOS 11 will have in store for us, but not all of those features will end up in the final ...more

Three years ago, with VR enthusiasts prepared to throw their money at Oculus to get their hands on the yet-to-be-release Rift headset, Google surprised the audience for Google I/O with Google Cardboard, a seemingly late April Fool's joke that actually jump-started virtual real ...more

Architects are natural candidates to be early adopters of mixed reality. Their trade consists of not only designing buildings and spaces, but also presenting those designs to clients, who then decide that their vision is worth spending thousands (if not millions or billions) ...more

Galaxy S8 preorders have begun arriving at doorsteps, and some websites seem to be enamored by Samsung's latest visual revamp of TouchWiz — but don't buy the hype, it's a trap! From TouchWiz to Grace UX to Samsung Experience, no matter what the name is, it's still the same old ...more

We've been dying to see how the new LG G6 stands up to wear and tear, with its near bezel-less display and glass construction, ever since the device was announced at Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona. It was put to the scratch, burn, and bend test, courtesy of one of ou ...more

If you have the Xposed Framework installed, there's a module that lets you enable background playback in Android's YouTube app without buying a YouTube Red subscription. But Xposed is not available on many devices—particularly those running Android Nougat—so this isn't an opti ...more

A development team in Silicon Valley is nearing early access release of a new hardware-independent augmented reality platform called Phantom AR. Compatible with Android and iOS-based headsets, as well as the Microsoft HoloLens and Meta 2, Phantom AR runs the entire augmented ...more

If you're an Android user, Google probably has almost your entire digital life stored on its servers. Family pictures are backed up on Google Photos, your e-book library resides with Google Play Books, videos are on YouTube, chat logs in Gmail and Hangouts, starred places and ...more

If you really want to play Gran Turismo or Castlevania on the go, Sony's PlayStation Portable is a great way to do it. But it gets harder and harder to justify carrying around a PSP handheld gaming console when you've got an equally powerful Android phone in your pocket alread ...more

There's no question about it—Skype is one useful program, but has always been lacking in the mobile department. On your desktop, Skype works just fine and all of its options are available for usage. However, the same cannot be said for Android. On Android, you can't even chang ...more

With the recent news that New York County's District Attorney's office is trying to get into over 400 locked iPhones for use in criminal investigations, you can see why it's important to keep other people away from your personal data. The fact that it can and will be used agai ...more

Mobile gaming still isn't on par with video game consoles or PCs, but we've come a long way from Snake. Modern games running on the latest smartphones boast downright impressive graphics—even more so when you consider how compact the system has to be in order to fit in people' ...more

If you've ever wondered why the pictures and videos you share with Snapchat on your Android device seem to look grainy with low resolution, you're not alone. We all know it, and we've come to accept it as a plain fact: Snapchat image quality sucks on Android. The reason behin ...more

Traditional root ad-blockers like AdAway and AdBlock Plus have no effect on YouTube anymore. Until now, if you wanted to get rid of the commercials that play before your favorite videos, there have only been two ways—either by paying for a YouTube Red subscription, or by using ...more

Starting with the Priv, BlackBerry's become an Android manufacturer. This move gives BlackBerry's phones access to Google's sizable app store, but it also presents several hurdles to keeping the security brand they've built intact. For example, Android encryption still lags b ...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

Over the course of the past century or so, media consumption has gone from a few readers enjoying their local print publication to billions of users viewing countless hours of video across the globe each day. This was a gradual evolution at first, but recent advancements in mo ...more

Microsoft is working hard to make Bing a good alternative to Google for more than just looking up images of the "human anatomy" that Google and a lot of other search engines filter out of their results. The Bing App home screen has five buttons that let you start searching qui ...more

In the recent hit movie Furious 7, the storyline revolves around the acquisition of a hacking system known as "God's Eye" that is capable of finding and tracking anyone in real time. Both the U.S. spy agencies and an adversarial spy agency (it's not clear who the adversary is, ...more

As Android's de facto virtual assistant, Google Now lets us speak directly to our phones in plain English to answer our questions and perform many basic tasks. With the app open, just say "Okay Google," then wait for the beep, and ask almost any question. But several Google N ...more

Update (February 2019): The methods below will help on older Android versions, but we've recently revisited this topic. So if you have a newer Android phone and you want to get rid of Google, head here. It seems like every week there is a new exposé revealing all of the backr ...more

Apple has once again improved functionality of Siri, their personal voice assistant for iPad and iPhone, in iOS 9—and this update is a big one. You can now use Siri to find photos based on location and date, set up contextual reminders, find your friends and family, and more. ...more

If your iPhone is rebooting or your Messages app is constantly crashing, you might be the victim of an iOS exploit or just a buggy software update. While one problem sounds worse than the other, they both can get annoying real quick when you can't send any messages or even rea ...more

Whether you drive a new or used car, discovering a new dent, scratch, or scuff mark can send you into a frustration spiral. While there are many DIY ways to deal with dents, scratches and scuff marks are trickier because using the wrong stuff could make your car's paint job lo ...more

Located at the bottom of the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 lies the speaker from which music, notifications, and most other audio comes from, which provides warm and clear sound when needed. When you need the audio to be louder, that's where third-party speakers come in handy, which ...more

The Master System, more popularly referred to as the Sega Master System, or SMS for short, is a video game console that was released in the mid-1980's as a direct competitor to the original Nintendo (NES). While it was given credit for playing a role in the development of its ...more

Gatorade: its popular red flavor can stain the whitest fabric, and its sweet taste is oddly refreshing after breaking a sweat. If you've ever participated in a sport, you probably spent halftime at games and practice breaks chugging the stuff. Though it made its name as a spor ...more

The world of root is upon us, folks. While the LG G3 has be available for purchase for a couple of months now, rooting had been a shaky subject. International and T-Mobile variants enjoyed root from day one, while various security patches left the AT&T and Verizon Wireless var ...more

These days, most of the hardware components in smartphones evolve at a breakneck pace. Batteries gain capacity while decreasing in size, displays continue to get sharper as graphics rendering steadily improves, and processors clock higher speeds at every generation. Audio qua ...more

Of the sixty or so "must-have" apps that are installed on my Samsung Galaxy Note 3, there's only one that I need to use and hate with a passion. Skype. Whenever using it, I'm consumed by dropped calls, mic issues, poor quality, and random crashes, among other things—and I'm no ...more

One of the most common complaints that people have about the Nexus 4 would have to be its intermittently poor Wi-Fi performance, a problem that for many, persists through the installation of updates and even custom ROMs. Many of us have experienced poor video streaming, slow ...more

Notice anything different about your Google searches lately? Your favorite businesses are becoming even more reachable online. Now, you can simply Google a business and click on its highlighted phone number to give them a call immediately from your computer. While it's always ...more

Apple has released the 2nd beta of iOS 8, exactly fifteen days after the first version was unveiled at WWDC and subsequently released to developers. I've already shown you some of the new features of iOS 8, like location-based app alerts, randomized MAC addresses, hidden Safar ...more

Is social media ready to make the jump to the big screen? The developers behind the Android app Stevie think so. Stevie is a social media aggregator that is currently available on both Android and iOS, but the Apple-compatible version does not support Chromecast just yet. The ...more

Lately, it seems, that we live in a two-dimensional world. With smart phones and tablets constantly at our fingertips, it always seems as if we are looking into a screen. The goal of Project Tango, as Google is calling it, is to give mobile devices a human-scale understanding ...more

It's been rumored ever since the 2012 release of the Kindle Fire, and now Amazon's first smartphone is set to debut a little later this year. A few weeks ago, BGR got an exclusive look at a prototype device assumed to be Amazon's first flagship smartphone, albeit in a clunky, ...more

I still remember when I had to get up from my comfy spot on the couch to change the channel on my old television. So for me, the remote control may be one of the most underrated inventions of the last century. These days, remotes take on all sorts of shapes, not just the typic ...more

As respectful as you may be, it's hard to resist looking through someone's iPhone when given the chance. You're not trying to snoop around, but it's just too easy to open up apps and read embarrassing emails or find scandalous Instagram follows. It's like looking through a dig ...more

Midway through 2013, a popular custom ROM called Paranoid Android introduced their multitasking feature "Halo." Bubble-style notifications inspired by Facebook chat heads pop up near the top of the screen, and you simply tap on them to bring up the app in a floating window. I ...more

Not too long ago, we told you about a new feature within Android KitKat that allowed for video recording directly from the screen of your Nexus 5. Though functional, the method was a bit clunky and involved hooking your phone up to your computer and sending over an ADB command ...more

It's time. You've experimented with apps from the Play Store, you've switched your lock screen, and maybe you've taken different launchers out for a spin. If, throughout your tinkering, you've found yourself chanting, "More. More. Give me more!" then now is the time. It's time ...more

No matter how much of a gamer you are, typing with your PS4 controller is a bitch. Let's just be real. Having to move left, then right, then down, for every single letter can make writing a message very time consuming; so much so that I usually avoid messaging altogether. How ...more

My favorite type of video game is first-person shooters, and the one that started it all for me was GoldenEye 007. There was just something about the controls, fast-paced action, and free-roaming environment that got me hooked. Unfortunately, I'd have to dust off my old Ninte ...more

When we're dead tired but need to stay awake, we humans can do many things to make the drowsiness go away, from taking a cold shower to downing energy drinks or coffee to acupressure. Unfortunately, our Android devices don't have as many options for staying awake, or the luxu ...more