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News: Here's Why You Should Be Using Private DNS on Your Phone

Nearly every connection to the internet is dependent on the Domain Name System. DNS, as it's more commonly called, translates domain names like gadgethacks.com into IP addresses, which is what network devices use to route data. The problem with DNS servers is that they don't have your privacy in mind.

News: Startup Phiar Prepares Beta Launch of AR Driving Navigation App for iPhone

Google pushed a new kind augmented reality walking navigation to the mainstream last year, and now startup Phiar is hoping users will use its AR app in the same way for driving navigation.

Market Reality: Apple, Snap, & Google Execs Talk AR, Form Takes AR to the Pool, & Octi Pivots to AR Social Networking

Some of the leading big tech companies are still working in the lab on actual products, but at least some of their leadership did have some thoughts to share on the future direction of the technology this week.

How To: Fit More Notification Icons in Your Pixel's Status Bar

In older Android versions, you could flood your status bar with a wall of notification icons. But starting with Android 9, Google made it to where you can only see four icons by default, and it was mostly done to accommodate phones with notches. But Google's only notched phone is the Pixel 3 XL, so what if you have literally any other Pixel?

How To: Learn Pronunciations for Any Word on Your iPhone in Two Quick Actions

There are apps for iPhone that have audio tools to help you learn how to pronounce a particular word you're looking up. For instance, one app has a little speaker icon next to each word's pronunciation respelling. Tap that to hear how the word sounds. But you don't need a third-party app because iOS has a pronunciation tool built right in, and you don't even have to leave the current page you're on.

How To: Hack Wi-Fi Networks with Bettercap

There are many tools out there for Wi-Fi hacking, but few are as integrated and well-rounded as Bettercap. Thanks to an impressively simple interface that works even over SSH, it's easy to access many of the most powerful Wi-Fi attacks available from anywhere. To capture handshakes from both attended and unattended Wi-Fi networks, we'll use two of Bettercap's modules to help us search for weak Wi-Fi passwords.

How To: The Hidden Gesture for Switching Between Apps on Home Button iPhones

I love my iPhone 8 Plus, but the allure of modern iPhone gestures is sometimes more tempting than I care to admit. I imagine many of you with a home button iPhone feel the same. What if I told you, however, that your iPhone is capable of iPhone X-like gestures? In fact, you can use a gesture to switch between apps. Welcome to the future.

News: Apple Recruitment Video Features Augmented Reality Clues at the Center of Call for New Team Members

Whenever a new Apple event invite arrives, the entire tech industry begins tearing the invite's graphics apart in a bid to decipher what the company may be planning on releasing in the coming weeks.

How To: There's a Hands-Free Way to Take Selfies on Your Galaxy

Smartphone photos look a lot better when you keep the camera steady, but selfies by nature make you do finger gymnastics to hold the phone while keeping your thumb free to hit the shutter button. If you have a Galaxy phone like the S10, however, there's an ingenious feature you can use to help ensure perfect selfies on the first try.

How To: There's a Super-Fast Way to Redial the Last Phone Number You Called

If you need to call someone back in a hurry, don't bother redialing the number. In fact, don't bother digging through your phone app to tap on the number in the call log. Instead, use this simple trick to quickly redial the number, whether you have an iPhone or Android.

How To: Phone Running Slow? Use Android's Built-in RAM Manager to Free Up Memory

There are phones nowadays with 12 gigs of RAM, but they'll cost you well over a grand. The majority of Android devices have much less memory — I'd wager most have less than 4 GB. And with the system taking up around 2 GB, that leaves user-installed apps little room to breathe.

How To: Add a Bank Account, Debit Card, or Credit Card to Your PayPal

PayPal is one of the most popular payment systems across the globe. It makes payments fast, easy, and secure, and with 250+ million users, it's not going anywhere. If you're new to the online service, one of the first things you should learn is how to add your bank account, credit card, or debit card to PayPal, and make your life easier when it comes to online payments and withdrawals.

Hands-On: Form Smart Swim Goggles Hit the Mark for Aquatics Athletes

Despite some of the biggest players in tech still lagging in terms of offering smartglasses options, there are nevertheless a number of smartglasses makers, including North and Vuzix, with consumer-grade smartglasses on the market right now.

How To: Learn TikTok's 'Renegade' Dance in 20 Seconds

Two minutes on TikTok is all it takes to learn that Renegade is a huge deal. The song and the dance combined are a viral trend that shows no sign of stopping. Feeling left out? Let's change that. You can learn the entire dance in just 20 seconds.

How To: Take Better Notes on Android Without Ever Typing a Thing

When Google introduced a new Recorder app with the Pixel 4, a lot of people were confused. There were hundreds of these apps on the Play Store that do a great job, so why did Google need to make one? Well, when you actually use it, you quickly see it's leaps and bounds better than any other option.

How To: The Easiest Way to Find Good Movies to Watch on Netflix & Prime Video on Your iPhone

Choosing a movie to watch at home can be incredibly difficult when you don't already have one in mind. But there's a shortcut for your iPhone that can make it easier to browse your streaming media services for something good to play. More specifically, it lets you browse Netflix and Amazon Prime at the same time.

News: Qualcomm & Accenture Upgrade Event Planning with AR App for Nreal Light & Mobile

One of the hallmarks of augmented reality's coming of age is that the technology is starting to find a home in business categories that are less obvious compared to typical AR enterprise use cases.

Android 101: How to Sideload Apps by Enabling 'Unknown Sources' or 'Install Unknown Apps'

One of Android's biggest strengths relative to iOS is how simple it is to sideload apps that aren't on the official app store. Rather than having to sign IPA files or tell your phone you trust a developer every two weeks, you can just enable a setting and be done with it.

How To: Customize Spark for Android Notifications with Lights, Sounds & Vibrations

Android is all about customization. That's why it's entirely appropriate that Spark for Android's newest update adds a ton of customization options for your out-of-control email alerts. Now, you can add lights, sounds, and vibrations to notifications, and you can even set specific settings for all of your email accounts.

News: Mobile AR App Octi Evolves into Social Network via Facial Recognition Tech

In a world full of augmented reality camera effects apps, one app is going in a more social direction.

How To: Enumerate MySQL Databases with Metasploit

It's been said time and time again: reconnaissance is perhaps the most critical phase of an attack. It's especially important when preparing an attack against a database since one wrong move can destroy every last bit of data, which usually isn't the desired outcome. Metasploit contains a variety of modules that can be used to enumerate MySQL databases, making it easy to gather valuable information.

Grab It Fast: 2nd Generation AirPods with Wireless Charging Case Drop to Lowest Price Since Black Friday

Second-generation AirPods just went on sale with the best prices since Black Friday's deals. So if you missed your shot at snagging a set of AirPods with the Charging Case or Wireless Charging Case, you've got another chance. But you'll need to act quickly to take advantage.

News: Apple Releases iOS 13.3.1 Public Beta 3 for iPhone

While some of us thought Apple might pass on a new beta update in favor of an official release, it appears iOS 13.3.1 is here to stay in beta testing. This time, it didn't take four weeks to get here. The third public beta for 13.3.1 is now available, eight days after the release of public beta 2.

How To: You Can Get WhatsApp's New Official Dark Mode on Android Right Now

After Android 10 added a system-wide dark mode, hordes of app developers rushed to add support for the feature. This even helped users on Android 9 and below since most apps could be manually set to a dark theme now. Emphasis on most — WhatsApp was conspicuously absent, for one. That changes today.

How To: There's a Workaround That Lets You Post Empty Tweets & Pin Retweets to Your Profile

On Twitter, you can pin one of your tweets or replies to your profile, so it's the first post people see when they visit your page. However, Twitter prevents you from pinning someone else's tweet. You can't even pin something you retweet. There is a clever workaround, though, and it also works for posting empty tweets.

News: Apple Releases iOS 13.3.1 Developer Beta 3 for iPhone

Beta testing on iOS is as Wild West as Apple gets. From feature-filled to featureless releases, there's a high level of unpredictability for what to expect. And not everything is found right away. For instance, last week's developer beta 2 added a new feature that was left undiscovered until three days later. So what has Apple hidden in today's iOS 13.3.1 dev beta 3 update?

News: Apple's Tim Cook, Google's Sundar Pichai, & Snap's Evan Spiegel Deliver Strategic Insights into AR in 2020 & Beyond

The words of three of tech's most important executives in the last 48 hours are providing some valuable insight into the near term future of augmented reality and the cloud infrastructures that support it.

How To: The Hidden Action That Opens Apple Pay from Your iPhone's Lock Screen

I think everyone with an iPhone should be making every purchase they can with Apple Pay. I also think everyone who uses Apple Pay should open the Wallet app ahead of time, instead of simply tapping their iPhone to the card reader. But there's a much faster way to open Wallet than slogging through the sea of apps on your iPhone. You can open it right from the lock screen.

How To: Run a Reverse Image Search Quickly Using Any Photo on Your iPhone

Google Images, TinEye, and other reverse image search engines can help you find where images appear on the internet. You can discover what TV show or movie an image comes from, who took a photo, and if the profile picture of someone you're talking to online is really them, among many other uses. And there's a shortcut for iOS that makes running a reverse image search easy.

How To: Bring Back the Back Button with Android 10's Gestures

It would be an understatement to say that Android 10's gestures are a controversial change. A lot of people just don't like change, plus the back gesture can be a bit tricky to activate sometimes — even after Google added a sensitivity setting for it. Thankfully, a third-party developer has a unique solution.

How To: Enable 20x Zoom on Your OnePlus Camera App

OnePlus has always pushed the boundaries with specs. They give their phones the premium treatment, which, yes, includes the camera nowadays as well. But even though they have become pretty solid in the photography department, it could always be better.

BT Recon: How to Snoop on Bluetooth Devices Using Kali Linux

While many people may use Bluetooth every day, the majority don't know how it works or that it can be hacked. Bluetooth hacking gives a clear window into the world of the target. Nearly every device has Bluetooth capabilities, and people store a great deal of personal info on their phones and tablets. Hack their Bluetooth connection, and you may be able to access all of that data.

How To: Stop Incoming Calls from Taking Over Your Galaxy's Entire Screen

With all the things you can do with your Galaxy, it's easy to forget it's still a phone at heart, and incoming calls that take over your entire screen serve as a rude reminder of this fact. Thankfully, Samsung handsets like the S10 and Note 10 come with a setting built-in that aims to keep these interruptions to a minimum.

How To: Block Ads in Games on Your iPhone for Distraction-Free Gameplay

No one likes in-app advertisements, especially in mobile gaming, but they're necessary because they offer developers a way to make revenue without having to charge you to play. In some games, in-app purchases give you the chance to remove ads, but what can you do about apps that don't offer the option to kill ads?

How To: Change These Settings Now to Stop Spam & Robocalls on Your Google Pixel

When Google introduced the Call Screen feature with the Pixel 3, I had never been more excited to get a Pixel device. This AI feature provided real protection against rising spam and robocalls, which billions of people deal with each year. Well, a recent update has made this feature even better.

Market Reality: Apple & Snap Boost AR Features, Magic Leap & Nreal Work on Truce, & Mojo Vision Unveils Smart Contacts

While the big names in augmented reality demonstrated the breadth of opportunities in the industry's landscape this week, one new startup showed off what is possible further in the future.

News: This Is Why All Augmented Reality Startups Suck

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 outstanding feat of "magic" presented, we nevertheless hold fast to our survival-based grip on the truth: we just saw simply "can't be real."

How To: Jump Straight into a Specific Gmail Inbox in 1 Tap

By default, Gmail organizes your inbox into multiple categories to make it easier for you to avoid spam and other unwanted mail, and get to the email that matters. But as it stands, to access these folders, you need to open Gmail, open its side menu, then select the inbox you want.

News: Apple Is Releasing 5 New iPhones This Year. What the Hell Are They Thinking?

Are you thinking about upgrading your iPhone this year? Apple sure wants you to. Of course, that's no different than any other year, but Apple really wants you to upgrade this year. How do we know this? The rumors point to not three, not four, but five brand new iPhones in 2020, with two very different release schedules. All this begs the question what the hell is Apple thinking?

Pro Tip: Set Firefox as Your Assist App to Open a New Tab MUCH Faster

Anytime you want, you can long-press the home button on an Android phone to bring up the Google Assistant. Or if you're using Android 10, you can swipe in from one of the bottom corners. But if you don't use Google Assistant that often, you can change the app that opens with these gestures and get a lot more usage out of it.