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Signal is a secure messaging app that takes your privacy very seriously. By default, messages only go to your phone, but you can add other devices that will receive copies, letting you chat from your computers and tablets. Here’s how to manage the devices that can access your Signal account. How to See Your Linked Devices Signal uses your phone number to identify who you are, which means you have to sign up and log in using your smartphone to use the service. Once you have done this, you can link other devices, like an iPad or a computer running macOS, Windows, or Linux. You can only use one “mobile device” with Signal at a time, but you can link up to five other devices, like tablets or laptops. This means you can only have one primary iPhone or Android smartphone linked to your account at any time. You’ll need to re-register Signal if you want to switch from Android to iPhone or vice versa. To see existing linked devices, or to add more, open Signal on your primary … [Read more...] about How to See and Manage Linked Devices in Signal

Telegram is a popular messaging app that places an emphasis on privacy, although not as much as Signal does . By default, Telegram shows anyone and everyone the last time you were online. Here’s how to hide that. Change How “Last Seen Online” Displays Telegram is available for iPhone and iPad, Android, Windows, Mac, and Linux. Because developers took a similar approach with each app, the instructions for changing this setting are the same. To find this option, tap or click on the Settings cog at the bottom of the screen or window. In the menu that appears, select “Privacy and Security.” Tap “Last Seen & Online” under the Privacy header. On the next screen, you can specify exactly who can see your “Last Seen Online” time: Everybody (including users you haven’t added), My Contacts, and Nobody. Depending on which setting you choose, you can add exceptions to this rule. For example, if you choose “Nobody,” you will see an “Always Share With…” option … [Read more...] about How to Hide Your “Last Seen Online” Time in Telegram

First released in 1991, the Game Genie let players enter special codes that made video games easier or unlocked other functions. Nintendo didn’t like it, but many gamers loved it. Here’s what made it special. Genie in a Bottle Game Genie is the brand name for a series of video game enhancement devices developed by Codemasters and sold by Galoob in the U.S. The first Game Genie model worked with the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System and launched in the summer of 1991 for about $50. Game Genie devices for the Super NES, Game Boy, Sega Genesis, and Game Gear followed. Like a genie of legend, the Game Genie made your wishes come true. To use one, you first plugged a game cartridge into the Game Genie unit and then plugged both devices into your console. Upon powering up, you saw a screen where you could enter a series of alphanumeric codes. These codes injected data between the game cartridge and the system , changing how the game worked and effectively reprogramming it on … [Read more...] about What Was the “Game Genie” Cheat Device, and How Did It Work?

Version 1.0 of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) standard was released in January 1996. 25 years and three attempts later, we’ve gone from USB 1.0’s 12 Mbit/s speeds to USB4’s 40 Gbit/s speeds. Here’s how USB conquered the world. The Problem: Wrestling with Ports and IRQs In the early 1990s, connecting peripherals to PCs was a mess. To use set up any PC, you had to utilize a handful of different types of incompatible ports and connectors. Most commonly, those included a keyboard port, a 9- or 25-pin RS-232 serial port , and a 25-pin parallel port . In addition, PC game controllers used their own 15-pin standard, and mice often plugged into serial ports or proprietary cards. At the same time, peripheral manufacturers began bumping into data rate limits in existing ports used for peripherals on PCs. Demand for telephony, video, and audio applications was growing. Traditionally, vendors had sidestepped these limitations by introducing their own proprietary ports that could be … [Read more...] about 25 Years of Making Connections With USB (After Three Attempts)

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