Gadget Hacks: Page 147

When it comes to playing videos from your personal media library, VLC is hard to beat. But let's say you want to play videos from an Android device by connecting it to your TV — what app should you use then? VLC is still the answer, particularly once you've enabled its TV-friendly UI.

Rooting has a long and storied history in the Android community. As OEMs push out more refined software, the need to root has diminished — still, the number of incredible things you can do with a rooted phone is enough to tempt many enthusiasts. Luckily, some manufacturers are still putting out root-friendly devices.

With all the hype surrounding meteoric rise of Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH), it's easy to overlook the fact that you can send and receive cryptocurrencies as a form of payment. And thanks to Coinbase, sending and receiving digital coins couldn't be any easier.

IFTTT (short for If This, Then That) is an amazing piece of software that automagically links actions on your phone with online services and real-world objects. For example, an applet could read: "if you come home, then turn on Wi-Fi." IFTTT goes further than just using simple smartphone functions, though — thanks to applets, it's fully configurable with a ton of smartphone apps.

Whether you're new to Android or you just haven't kept up on the app scene lately, we hand-picked over one hundred essential apps that are all designed to improve your experience. From custom launchers and icon packs to weather apps and file explorers, there's something for everyone in this list.

It took a few months, but several major phones are finally receiving updates to Android Oreo. At this point, we've spent significant time talking about Oreo on the Galaxy S8, Galaxy Note 8, and Essential Phone. While an update to the latest OS is always great, there is one big Android 8.0 feature that isn't coming to every phone.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has officially arrived on Coinbase, which means you can now easily buy, sell, send, and receive the digital currency without having to manually set up a wallet or trade on an exchange like Poloniex. This addition has boosted the price of BCH, which is currently trading at around $3,400 a coin.

The Oreo beta updates for the S8 and Note 8 have been avilable for some time now. If you're interested in running Oreo on your Galaxy Note 8, you can check out our guide on how to do so. As we dig deeper into the updates, one question on the minds of Galaxy fans is whether or not the Oreo update will support Project Treble. Today, it appears we have an answer.

Back in November, Essential opened the Android Oreo Beta Program for all users of their PH-1 flagship. We even wrote up a full guide on how to install the beta, if you're interested. They followed the Oreo beta with a Reddit AMA, where they mentioned the second beta software would arrive very soon. That update has just gone live, so you can grab it right now in a few easy steps.

As smartphones become more accessible, billions of people have come to depend on their features for daily life. One of the most important aspects these days is the camera. OEMs have been working for years to improve camera quality, and they seem to have finally figured it out — the best way to achieve DSLR-quality photos wasn't just with better sensors, but with better intelligence.

When it comes to mobile gaming, you have a lot of fantastic options. Most flagship devices on the market, such as the Galaxy Note 8, iPhone 8 Plus, or OnePlus 5T, are perfectly capable of giving you an excellent, immersive experience. If you're looking for the ultimate way to experience Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp or something with more action like Into the Dead 2, the Razer Phone is the winner.

Samsung's Galaxy S8 and S8+ are excellent smartphones that wowed critics and consumers alike. So, it's only natural that Samsung's followup, the Galaxy S9 and S9+, would garner significant anticipation. While we don't know everything about these devices quite yet, we do have guesses to some key points of interest, including when the device will be announced and even released.

Apple's codec for photos and videos in iOS 11, HEVC (High-Efficiency Video Coding), as well as the container, HEIF (High-Efficiency Image File Format), result in a reduction in size for pictures and movies without sacrificing quality. Seems like a win-win situation, but Windows-users can't open the .heic extension that these files use.

Mozilla baked an easily missed feature into their Firefox Browser for Android called the "tab queue," which you should definitely be using if you find yourself opening links a lot from emails, texts, and other link-heavy apps. With tab queuing enabled, you can save links as new tabs in Firefox without ever leaving the current app you're in.

Besides its extensive collections of add-ons for Android, Firefox's mobile browser apps have many built-in features that you won't see in other mobile browsers. One feature in particular, available for both Android and iOS versions, makes it easy to switch back and forth between search engines for any query.

The release of Into the Dead 2 has given fans of the zombie bashing genre a fresh game to enjoy, but it's also given us the opportunity to revisit our roundup for the best free action games for mobile. Not only did it replace its predecessor in our charts, it managed to surpass it. Here's what made the game shine through.

With the release of iOS 11, Apple promised to give us person-to-person transactions by way of iMessages. In the iOS 11.2 update, the new Apple Pay Cash system is now ready for you to send money to family and friends right from your iPhone — and there are multiple ways to get it done.

Over the past month, we've spent significant time covering Samsung's Oreo Beta program, and the detailed list of features in Oreo is extensive for the Galaxy S8 and S8+. Many of you were upset when the Galaxy Note 8 was left out of the official Oreo beta program entirely, but we found a method to install a beta Oreo build right now on the unlocked and US variants if you'd like to give it a try.

Now that we've had significant time with Samsung's Oreo Beta for the Galaxy S8, many interesting features have come to light. As we continue using the new software, we have uncovered more subtle changes. The home screen already received a few new customization features, it's only fitting that the edge screen get some love, too.