Virtual reality‘s promise has always been at least a little enticing: Strap on a headset that puts a screen so close to your eyes it tricks your brain into thinking you’re piloting a spaceship on the other side of the galaxy, or deep-sea diving with a blue whale, or taking lightsaber lessons from Darth Vader. …
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Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Tik Tok. It’s easy to be distracted by the next shiny update or amusement, instead of responding to emails, banking, reading the news or doing whatever it is you should be doing on your phone. You need Google’s newly launched tool called Focus Mode, which was designed to combat distracting apps on your Android device. Originally announced last …
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This story is part of The 2010s: A Decade in Review, a series on the memes, people, products, movies and so much more that have influenced the 2010s. In the last decade, apps (and by association, phones) have become an almost essential part of our lives. Since the iOS App Store and Google Play launched in 2008 with what seemed …
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Facebook’s Oculus Quest VR headset keeps getting new features. Last month, it added USB-C PC tethering for running more powerful Oculus Rift apps. Now, it can work without controllers, using the headset’s external cameras to track your finger motion and hand movement. Earlier this fall, hand tracking was unveiled as a feature coming in early 2020. It’s part of Facebook CEO …
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Hi, my name is Daniel and I have a problem. A TikTok problem. After dismissing it for over a year, TikTok was thrust upon me last month at, of all things, a bachelor party in Hong Kong. It was a little like The Hangover, but subtract drugs, strippers and Mike Tyson’s tiger and replace it with a trendy Chinese video …
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The streaming wars are heating up. Philo is still offering a free Fire TV Stick 4K when you prepay for 6 months of service, and now Sling is, er, slinging a freebie of its own: For a limited time, you can get a free Google Nest Hub smart display when you prepay for 3 months of Sling TV. Total cost: …
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VR headsets take you places and AR headsets show you things in the real world that aren’t really there. The next step is likely to be a wave of camera-filled VR headsets that are going to blend the real world with the virtual. They’ll also be able to track your room and your face at the same time. Call it …
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Admit it: You’ve always wanted to read Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, but you don’t have time to pore through its 300 pages just to extract the key lessons. And, let’s face it, many such nonfiction books can be boiled down to a few important takeaways — the big ideas, the main points. Enter 12min, a library of nonfiction books …
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SiriusXM is no longer just a satellite radio provider — the company has started streaming to Google smart speakers, so you can now listen at home via a Google Nest Hub (for what it’s worth, SiriusXM has been on Alexa for a while now). To celebrate, you can still make the most of the company’s Cyber Monday Deal and get a Google …
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Google named Glitch Video Effects the Play Users’ Choice App of 2019 on Tuesday, as part of Google Play’s Best of 2019 awards. Google’s top picks followed the news of Apple’s first annual App Store Best Apps and Games awards earlier in the day. Glitch Video Editor, from developer InShot, allows users to take photos and videos and add more …
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