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Computational photography is responsible for most of the amazing strides our smartphone cameras have taken in the last decade. Here’s how it works, and how it makes our photos so much better. The Magic of Computational Photography Computational photography uses digital software to enhance the photos taken by a camera. It’s most prominently used in smartphones. In fact, computational photography does the heavy lifting to create the great-looking images you see in your smartphone photo gallery. The rapid improvement in smartphone cameras over the last few years can largely be attributed to improving software, rather than changes to the physical camera sensor. Some smartphone manufacturers, like Apple and Google, continuously improve the photo-taking capabilities of their devices year after year without ever drastically changing the physical camera sensors. Why Does Computational Photography Matter? How a camera digitally captures a photo can be roughly divided into two … [Read more...] about What Is Computational Photography?

On February 1, 1991, John Romero, John Carmack, Tom Hall, and Adrian Carmack officially founded id Software. The group went on to revolutionize the game industry with franchises such as Wolfenstein , Doom , and Quake . Here’s a look back at id Software over the last 30 years, with a little help from those legendary developers. id Software: The House That Keen Built The story of id Software began in the late 1980s, when John Carmack, John Romero, Adrian Carmack (no relation to John), and Tom Hall developed games for a mail-order disk magazine company called Softdisk , located in Shreveport, Louisiana. After John Carmack devised a breakthrough scrolling technique for PC games in mid-1990, Hall, Romero, and Carmack created a new platform game— Commander Keen —based on the technology while secretly moonlighting at Softdisk. Soon the talented group began communicating with Scott Miller of Apogee Software , a pioneering shareware publisher. After some … [Read more...] about From Keen to Doom: id Software’s Founders Talk 30 Years of Gaming History

If you frequently need directions to go to a certain address from your current location—say, from work or the grocery store to your home—it’s easy to make a quick shortcut that can always give you directions to a pre-set location in Apple Maps. Here’s how. But First, Know That Siri Can Already Take You “Home” In some cases, you might not even need to make this shortcut. If you have “Significant Locations” turned on in Location Services, your iPhone will automatically learn your home’s location by analyzing your travel history. If you’re in the car, you can quickly ask Siri something like “Take me home,” and you’ll get turn-by-turn directions to your home. But if you don’t have a “home” defined or would like to frequently get directions to another custom destination no matter where you are, you can set up the shortcut below. RELATED: How to Find Your Location History on iPhone or iPad How to Make a “Go Home” Directions Shortcut To perform this magic trick, … [Read more...] about How to Make a “Go Home” Directions Shortcut on iPhone

Need a quick but powerful way to rename large groups of files in Windows 10? Using Microsoft’s free PowerToys , all that power is only a right-click away thanks to the PowerRename module. Here’s how to use it. Install PowerToys and Enable PowerRename Before all this exciting renaming action can begin, you’ll first need to download PowerToys from Microsoft’s website. To get it, visit this link in your favorite browser and look for the latest release toward the top of the page, which will have a name similar to “ PowerToysSetup-0.27.1-x64.exe.” Download that file and run it to install PowerToys. After you’ve installed PowerToys, launch PowerToys Settings and click “PowerRename” in the sidebar. Make sure that the switch beside “Enable PowerRename” is turned on. After that, close the PowerToys Settings window. RELATED: All Microsoft's PowerToys for Windows 10, Explained Let the Renaming Begin Now that you have PowerToys installed, renaming a bunch of … [Read more...] about How to Easily Batch Rename Files on Windows 10

There are a lot of strange terms that come with using a computer. One that you may have seen is “Human Interface Device” or “HID.” It sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, but what exactly does it mean? “Human Interface Device” may sound strangely alien, but the name is actually very descriptive. Simply put, an HID is a standard for computer devices that are operated by humans. The standard allows these devices to be easily used without any extra software or drivers. A Standard to Simplify Accessories “Human Interface Devices” is a standard that was created to simplify the process of installing input devices. Prior to HID, there were several specific protocols for each type of input device. That meant there was a protocol for mice, a protocol for keyboards, and so on. Devices needed to use the existing protocols or create custom drivers. People had more work to do when installing and configuring devices. In comparison, an HID-compliant device includes “data … [Read more...] about What Is a Human Interface Device (HID)?