Gadget Hacks: Page 145

We're all guilty of a little social media stalking now and again. Or ... every day. Who's keeping track? Everyone secretly wants to know what their ex/arch nemesis is doing for the weekend via Snapchat or Instagram Stories.

The Google Pixel was just knocked off its pedestal as DxOMark Mobile's best smartphone camera, courtesy of the HTC U11. Ouch ...

Tuesday gave us what I am dubbing a "patent dump." Can you blame me? The U.S. Patent Office released 56 patents from Apple. 56! Among them, there are patents confirming Apple is working on embedded Touch ID, edge-to-edge displays, and a 3D camera system (surprise, surprise). Some of those things we've heard rumors on for some time, but what is new is one of the patents hidden amongst the bunch, describing an Apple-made avatar system. One whose end-goal is to reflect your current emotional state...

If you ever get asked to update your WhatsApp to your favorite color, don't. It's probably spam.

Cinemagraphs are basically artistic photos that have been turned into a GIF to showcase a bit of subtle motion and give them life. Unlike regular GIFs, which can sometimes loop with a jarring cut at the end, cinemagraphs give the illusion of perpetual motion, like water drops off a flower's petal or clouds moving over a scenic sky.

Kik is an extremely popular messaging app, but it has a few annoying features that we all just sort of put up with. You can't turn off read receipts, nor can you hide when you're typing, and the photos you take with Kik's camera show up differently than ones you send from your gallery app. At least a couple of these features should be subject to change, but they aren't — well, not without some tinkering.

UPDATE 5/12: According to Bloomberg, it looks like the merger is on. Anonymous sources claim discussions have already begun about consolidation. Looks like there might be a new 5G powerhouse after all.

If you have stuck volume buttons, it can be a real pain to adjust sound levels since your only other option is to use the volume menu in Settings. But even if your volume rocker is working fine, it's still a little weird to have to click a mechanical button to control one of the most central aspects of an operating system that is otherwise entirely touch-based.

Sometimes it's impossible to concentrate — let alone direct your personal assistant Siri — when someone is blasting music on their phone or talking to thin air. I mean I'm loud, but not that loud.

We're all passionate about something. Maybe it's the environment. Stopping poverty. Finding the best taco joint ... Whatever your cause, the last thing we want is to support companies whose practices go against what we believe. After all, you can't trust someone who doesn't like tacos. So it can be difficult to know which companies to avoid; there are just too many doing too many shady things to keep track of. Until ...

Last week, T-Mobile CEO John Legere got salty. He announced ever so cheerily T-Mobile's intentions to release the first true 5G network in coming years, all while gaily smacking AT&T around for their bogus "5G Evolution" reveal. But could Legere be wrong to say T-Mobile will be the nation's first 5G carrier? It looks as though that title may have to be shared with Sprint ...

Fans of Titanfall now have a great alternative to play on their iPhones whenever they're out and about. Titanfall: Assault has arrived as a soft launch for iOS devices. A hybrid between card-based and real-time strategy genres, the game will pit you against other players with some mech-on-mech action to dominate the battlefield.

Google's working on a new mobile operating system called Fuchsia, and while we don't know much about how they intend to use it, we're now getting a glimpse at what the main interface will look like.

WhatsApp sneakily made some security changes to iCloud backups without your knowledge, ladies and gents. Not that strengthening security is a bad thing, but still!

You know, I was actually starting to get comfortable with the idea of the iPhone 8 not showing up until next year. As an Apple fan, I made my peace with it. "There's a lot coming in this model," I told myself. "It does make sense that this many features could cause delays." I was fine. But then ...

Up until now, enabling full-time Immersive Mode on an Android device has been a tedious task which required you to run individual ADB commands each time you wanted to toggle it on or off. This was a shame, too, since Immersive Mode helps reclaim lots of screen real estate by auto-hiding your navigation and status bars.

Your Android phone could be listening to ultrasonic ad beacons behind your back. The unwelcome news comes year after app developer SilverPush promised to quit using its (creepy!) eavesdropping software.

When someone asks me why they should root their phone, one of the top reasons I always give is that it enables you to install the Xposed Framework. Created by developer Rovo89, Xposed basically hooks into the Android system, then allows users to simply install mini-apps called modules that can change almost anything in a device's interface or other installed apps.

Amazon's first venture into the wireless phone market was a crash and burn moment — and that's us being kind. Their FirePhone went down in flames almost instantly, no pun intended.

Who pays for live TV anymore? Better question, who watches live TV anymore? With a ton of streaming services available, there's no room in our lives for things like schedules, commercials, or going weeks between episodes. (What is this, 2010?)