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How To: How Google's Titan M Chip Makes the Pixel 3 One of Most Secure Android Phones

When Google introduced the Pixel 3 on October 9th, one of new additions they briefly mentioned was the Titan M security chip. While they did talk about how it will improve overall security, they didn't expand on the number of changes it brings to the Pixel 3's security. Well, they finally shared more, and it's a pretty big deal.

How To: Make OTA Updates Easy by Rooting Your Pixel 3 with Magisk

Rooting usually means sacrifice. With most root methods, you lose access to apps like Netflix and Android Pay when SafetyNet gets tripped. More importantly, you lose the ability to accept OTA updates, forcing you to manually flash new Android versions. But there's a way around all of this if you root the right way.

How To: Unlock the Bootloader on Your Pixel 3 or 3 XL — a Beginner's Guide

The main draw for Google's Pixel series is the software. It rocks a clean version of stock Android instead of a heavy OEM skin like TouchWiz, it gets frequent prompt OS updates, the camera software is downright amazing, and it has perhaps the most fluid UI of any phone. But an understated advantage of the software is how dead-simple it is to modify with root-level tweaks.

News: Lyft's Pick Up of AR Cloud Startup Blue Vision Labs Could Bring AR Features to Ride-Sharing

On Tuesday, Blue Vision Labs, one of three Google-backed companies working on AR Cloud platforms, announced its acquisition by ride-sharing company Lyft.

News: Google's Night Sight Camera Is Downright Amazing

The Pixel 3 has an indisputably great camera, but a software update coming soon is going to make it even better. Google will be adding a "Night Sight" shooting mode that's so good with low-light situations that you'll have to see it to believe it.

News: iOS 12.1 Public Beta 5 for iPhone Released to Software Testers

Just hours after the release of dev beta 5 on Monday, Oct. 22, Apple released iOS 12.1 public beta 5 to software testers. The update came just one week after the company seeded the fourth 12.1 beta to developers and public testers alike, continuing the weekly update schedule established over the past few releases.

News: Apple Releases iOS 12.1 Beta 5 to Developers

Check your Settings, software testers — Apple released the fifth iOS 12.1 beta on Monday, Oct. 22, just seven days after seeding the fourth beta to both developers and public testers alike. While this initial update is only for developers, we expect Apple to subsequently release the public beta within hours of this post.

News: Ghostbusters World AR Game Arrives as Halloween Treat & We Dive into Its Location-Based Tricks

Because timing is everything, the latest entry in the location-based augmented reality gaming sweepstakes, Ghostbusters World, has arrived just in time for Halloween.

News: The First Smartglasses with True Mainstream Appeal Arrive via North's Focals

The dream of Google Glass lives on via North's stylish and normal-looking smartglasses that bring text messages and navigation prompts into the user's field of view and Amazon Alexa integration for voice-activated assistance.

News: Resolution Games Scores $7.5M in Funding Round Backed by Google, Unity Founder, & Others

Fresh off shipping an augmented reality game for Magic Leap, Resolution Games has farmed another $7.5 million in funding through a Series B round.

News: ESPN, Fox Sports, & NBA's Clippers & Mavericks Draw Up Augmented Reality Plays to Win Over Fans

Augmented reality is becoming a slam dunk for sports entertainment, as leagues, their teams, and their broadcast partners have been quick to adopt AR.

How To: Apply OTA Updates on Your Rooted Pixel 2 or 2 XL

So, you rooted your Pixel 2 or 2 XL and everything seems to be working quite well. However, a month passes, and you get a notification to install the monthly security update. Like clockwork, Google has been pushing out OTA security patches every single month for a while, but there is a new problem for you at this point — as a rooted user, you are unable to apply the update correctly.

How To: Detect When a Device Is Nearby with the ESP8266 Friend Detector

Smartphones and other Wi-Fi enabled devices send radio signals called probe frames to locate nearby wireless networks, which makes them easy to track by listening for their unique MAC address. To show how this kind of tracking works, we can program a NodeMCU in Arduino to sniff the air for packets from any device we want to track, turning on an LED when it's detected nearby.

Mate 20 Pro vs. Galaxy Note 9: Comparing the Best Phones from the Top 2 Manufacturers

While many are familiar with Samsung, I'm pretty sure most Americans couldn't name the second-largest smartphone OEM. It's actually Huawei, and they recently released a spec-sheet dream of a phone in the Mate 20 Pro. So naturally, we wanted to see how it compared to the largest OEM's best offering.

News: Inside Magic Leap's Cinematic Partnership with Andy Serkis & The Imaginarium's Experimental Motion Capture Experience

By now, you've probably already seen Andy Serkis and his performance capture demo for Magic Leap. And sure, marrying motion capture acting and augmented reality sounds compelling, but how does it really work as an experience?

Market Reality: Magic Leap, Twilio, Jaunt, & Adidas Reveal the Future of AR Content & Communication

A week after the L.E.A.P. Conference, our cup of Magic Leap news continues to floweth over, with the company's content chief giving us some insight into the company's strategy, and Twilio sharing what its virtual chat app looks like.

News: AR Cloud Startup 6D.Ai Video Gives a Peek at Next-Level Mobile AR from Devs Using Company's SDK

A sizzle reel just released by augmented reality cloud company 6D.ai shows off what kind of hyper-realistic AR experiences developers can build with its SDK.

News: The Weather Channel Takes Broadcast AR to Next Level with Wildfires Report

The last time The Weather Channel showed off its broadcast augmented reality, the internet couldn't stop talking about how immersive the presentation looked, despite being shown on a 2D display.

How To: Detect & Classify Wi-Fi Jamming Packets with the NodeMCU

The most common Wi-Fi jamming attacks leverage deauthentication and disassociation packets to attack networks. This allows a low-cost ESP8266-based device programmed in Arduino to detect and classify Wi-Fi denial-of-service attacks by lighting a different color LED for each type of packet. The pattern of these colors can also allow us to fingerprint the tool being used to attack the network.

News: Twilio & Magic Leap Deliver First Live Demo of Avatar Chat Communications App

On Thursday, yet another piece of the Magic Leap puzzle fell into place at Twilio's Signal developer and customer conference in San Francisco.

News: Snapchat Lens Studio Adds New Segmentation Templates to Its Bag of Augmented Reality Tricks

On Thursday, Snap released three new templates for its Lens Studio that will give creators access to augmented reality capabilities previously only available to Snap's own design team.

News: Everything You Need to Know About the ASUS ROG Phone — the Best Gaming Phone on the Market

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 rest, creating a gaming phone others should try to emulate.

News: Wingnut AR's Pest Control Is Unreleased, Mostly Unseen, but Undeniably One of Magic Leap One's Best Titles

Despite the relatively small size of Magic Leap's first annual L.E.A.P. conference, there was a lot to see and experience. Apparently missed by many was one of the best experiences I had at the event: Wingnut AR's unreleased Pest Control game.

News: HoloLens Update Brings Display Mirroring & Quick Actions Menu for Routine Tasks

Microsoft has informed HoloLens users that the company will begin rolling out a mandatory update for HoloLens as part of its Windows 10 October 2018 release that brings a number of new features and quality-of-life improvements to the headset.

Hacking macOS: How to Bypass Mojave's Elevated Privileges Prompt by Pretending to Be a Trusted App

The latest macOS security update tries to make parts of the operating system difficult for hackers to access. Let's take a closer look at how this new feature works and what we can do to spoof the origin of an application attempting to access protected data.

News: The Pixel 3 Still Has a Circular Polarizer

The Pixel 2 XL had what Google called a circular polarizer to ensure the screen would be visible from any orientation while wearing polarized sunglasses. They made a pretty big deal out of it at their 2017 event, but in 2018, there was no mention of whether or not this feature would return in the Pixel 3. It did.

News: Hands-On with Magic Leap & Weta Workshop's Dr. Grordbort's Invaders

Over the last few years, the only thing teased by Magic Leap more than the Magic Leap One itself has been the company's flagship gaming title Dr. Grordbort's Invaders. The game, developed by New Zealand studio Weta Workshop, finally got its debut last week during the L.E.A.P. conference in Los Angeles.

News: MagiMask Is Probably Not the AR Headset You're Looking for, but Offers a Cute Trick for Mobile AR

So far, consumer augmented reality headsets haven't found mainstream success. That's primarily because no manufacturer has managed to hit the sweet spot between slim form factor, performance, and affordability.

How To: Hide @iCloud, @Me & Custom Aliases from Your Mail App's 'From' Field on Your iPhone

If you use Apple's email services and the "From:" field in your iPhone's Mail app is cluttered with @Mac.com, @Me.com, and @iCloud.com variations of the same address — along with third-party accounts — there's an easy way to declutter things and hide the addresses you don't use anymore.

News: Huawei Mate 20 Pro — Finally, a Phone with Almost No Compromises

In this jam-packed October, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro has flown under the radar in the US. Due to Huawei's lack of presence in the States, many are unfamiliar with the second largest OEM in the world. Huawei has continuously put out amazing mobile devices, and this year they released a phone that's nearly perfect on paper.

News: Jaunt Hit with Layoffs as Startup Abandons VR Business to Focus on Augmented Reality

After building its business on virtual reality, Jaunt is leaving the technology behind to focus on building tools for creating augmented reality content.

News: The Sims Freeplay Adds Multiplayer Augmented Reality Mode via ARKit 2.0

Electronic Arts is inviting players of The Sims Freeplay and their friends to visit the homes of their Sims in augmented reality with a new AR mode that supports multiplayer and persistent content using ARKit 2.0.

News: Magic Leap's Chief Content Officer Rio Caraeff Opens Up on Walled Gardens, Data Privacy, & Blockchain

Over the years, Magic Leap's long-cultivated shroud of mystery led some onlookers to buy into the company's dream before even trying the device, while for others, the secrecy seems to have stoked the kind of resentment and overcorrecting critique usually reserved for the mighty Apple.

How To: Root Your OnePlus 5 Using Magisk

Perhaps you've thought about rooting your OnePlus 5, but thought again when you heard SafetyNet would prevent you from using apps like Google Pay, Pokémon GO, or Netflix. Those are valid struggles when you root using traditional methods. There are no such worries when using Magisk, as it masks the fact that your device has been modified.

News: iOS 12.1 Public Beta 4 Is Out Right Now for iPhone Software Testers

Good news for beta testers — Apple released iOS 12.1 beta 4 to public testers Monday, Oct. 15. The update comes just hours after the company seeded beta 4 to developers and only six days after all beta user received iOS 12.1 beta 3.

News: Owlchemy Labs ARCore Experiment Lets Android Users View a Friend's VR Experience from Their Smartphone

Google subsidiary Owlchemy Labs has cooked up an experimental ARCore mobile app that enables smartphone users to follow along with their VR friends as they play games in a head-mounted display.

News: Apple Just Released iOS 12.1 Developer Beta 4 to Testers

Just six days after the release of dev beta 3, developers now have their hands on the fourth iOS 12.1 beta. While Apple has recently followed a lengthy and inconsistent release schedule with its beta software, the company seems to want to keep testers happy with 12.1 — beta 4 might have come less than the standard seven days after beta 3, but at least it's here quickly.