5 free augmented reality apps to delight your kids

Techradar - All the latest technology news 5 free augmented reality apps to delight your kids

Simply handing your smartphone to your child is a lazy way to keep them entertained; instead you can harness the incredible power in your pocket to enjoy quality time with your kids as they have fun and develop their creative skills.

One of the best ways to do this is through augmented reality (AR), using your phone's camera to superimpose digital images and animations onto the real world to distort reality. 

From unlocking the secrets of the universe to giving yourself a funny meerkat makeover, there's loads of AR excitement to be had when stuck in even the most mundane of settings.

Exciting and entertaining for little ones and big kids alike, these apps will turn your phone into a more magical portal than anything JK Rowling can conjure up.

1. MSQRD

Price: Free iOS / Android / Windows Phone

If you haven't got the time to crack out the face paints, you can still customise your kid's grinning visage easily and fuss-free using AR.

Face-warping (where you fire up the front-facing camera and alter your features digitally) is one of the most fun and delightful things to do with your phone, and while there are a number of face-warping apps, MSQRD is one of the best we've seen.

From ogres to tigers, and from fairies to fighter pilots, this app will transform your face (and those of your little ones) into all manner of weird and wonderful creations right before your eyes.

Available for iOS, Android and Windows Phone, the app features an in-built face-switching tool to increase the fun of these interactive masks even further, offering truly odd features and bringing a swift smile to a child in any boring situation.

2. Dinosaurs Everywhere!

Price: Free iOS / Android

If there's one thing that every kid loves - besides chocolate or Santa - it's dinosaurs.

If you've run out of reasons for not taking them to Jurassic Park (because they know it's real, no matter what you try to tell them), why not bring the prehistoric lizards to them?

The great thing about this free iOS and Android app is it will drop AR dinosaurs wherever you point your phone's camera, making everything from a walk in the park to a trip through the supermarket an exciting maze of dino-dodging.

It has an useful educational element too, where tapping on the bodies of the virtual animals brings up a fact sheet on the beast.

Including this surprising nugget: did you know the diplodocus was 33m long? Neither did we.

3. Quiver

Price: Free iOS / Android

Just because children are becoming used to a digital world, it doesn't mean that the creative act of coloring-in needs to be forgotten.

Quiver combines real-world drawing and shading with AR technology to bring the ancient art of shading to the modern era, using both physical skills and your phone's camera.

To start, you'll need to download and print Quiver's coloring pages from quivervision.com, add the app to your phone and use whatever pens or pencils you have to hand to transform your designs into colorful creations.

Now when you dangle your phone over the pictures, your designs will rise from the page to bring the characters to life.

As well as paid-for print outs, there are dozens of free designs to download and enjoy from Quiver to fire your child's (or your) imagination.

4. Iron HUD

Price (with in-app purchase of £1.49 (around $2 / AU$2.50)) : Free, iOS

The idea of being Iron Man isn't just exciting to children - it's a cool idea that we can all get on board with.

Well thanks to the power of AR, your phone can now get you pretty close to taking on that iconic role.

OK, so you can't fly around, be effortlessly suave or have billions in the bank, but you can get an idea of what it's like cram your head into that superhero suit.

Using the Iron HUD app, you'll hold up the phone to view the world through Iron Man's eyes - all the while being guided by the voice of his assistant Jarvis.

The free app is pretty basic, but splash for the in-app purchase on the all-encompassing in-app purchase, and you'll soon be firing rockets, lasers and enjoying target-based mini-games.

We're now secretly hoping this comes to VR soon too...

5. Reality Pool

Price: Free iOS

When you're stuck inside with bored offspring on rainy afternoons, you can use AR to bring all manner of games to life, no matter how much space you've got available.

It can be hard to choose which one though; there are AR football and basketball games out there, but we've found these just don't work consistently enough to create a fluid and immersive experience.

However, the iPhone-friendly Reality Pool brings a pool table to your house without any worries over space and cost.

All you've got to do is place a rectangular item on a flat surface - a piece of paper, cereal box or rug will all work.

Now when you point your phone in the direction of said rectangle a digital pool table will appear through your screen, and all you need to do is walk around it, line up your shots (pulling back the on-screen cue to make your pots) and turn a meaningless four-sided shape into hours of fun.

This article is brought to you in association with Tesco Mobile

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14 eyebrow-raising personal details Google knows about you

Macworld 14 eyebrow-raising personal details Google knows about you

Google may know more about me than I know about myself.

I'm not just saying that, either: I recently started poking around in Google's personal data repositories and realized that, between my wide-reaching use of the company's services and my own brain's inability to remember anything for more than seven seconds, Google may actually have the upper hand when it comes to knowledge about my life.

From face-tagged photos of my past adventures (what year did I go to Nashville, again—and who went with me to that Eddie Vedder show?) to the minute-by-minute play-by-play of my not-so-adventuresome days (wait, you mean I really only left the house once last Wednesday—and just to get a freakin' sandwich?!), Google's got all sorts of goods on me. Heck, even my hopes and dreams (which may or may not involve sandwiches) are probably catalogued somewhere in its systems.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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5 ways to learn a new language on your way to work

Techradar - All the latest technology news 5 ways to learn a new language on your way to work

There's nothing like the smug feeling of being on holiday and ordering a plate of chips in the native tongue (regardless of how bad your accent probably is). 

And what's brilliant is your smartphone has become the perfect portal to do just that - and with minimal effort compared to having attend night classes or order records from the back of a magazine.

A range of new apps, YouTube channels and online portals make getting to grips with a new language in a short amount of time simple and, more importantly, actually enjoyable.

A number of popular apps turn language learning into an experience that's almost as addictive as the biggest smartphone games with badges, rewards and different levels gamifying a tough task. 

But what sets these apps apart from average games is you come away with an actual, tangible reward too: being able to ask for another beer in something other than English. 

Here's our pick of the simplest and cheapest ways to learn a new language, perfect when you're daydreaming about a Spanish villa or Thai island on your way into your sad, little office, with everything from the conversational basics to the chance to become a conversational conquistador on offer. 

1. Duolingo

- Price: Free iOS / Android

Duolingo is both an app and online portal, and has grown to over 110 million users worldwide. In fact, ask anyone the best way to learn a language on the go and they're likely to excitedly shout "DUOLINGO!" at the top of their lungs.

What makes Duolingo so effective (and not to mention addictive) is it chops up learning a new language into digestible and gamified chunks such as Basics, Food and Animals.

In each lesson you type in phrases, read new words, look at visuals and speak phrases into the microphone too (which you can do while pretending you're making a phone call, if you don't want to look odd on the train chatting to your handset).

So it's a bit like a school exam in that it focuses on speaking, reading and writing a language, which many would argue is the best way to learn.

You can track your progress as you move through different levels and, after a few, take a simple test to check it's all sinking in. 

2. Easy Languages

The Easy Languages YouTube channel is a different to the stereotypical way of learning a new tongue, in that it's not someone lecturing you on a new language and expecting you to absorb at the same pace.

Instead the creators take to the streets of foreign climes to help you hear languages from actual speakers in their natural setting, allowing you to see how the language is used naturally while also learning about the culture it's from.

Although each episode is produced in the local language, you can follow along in subtitles of the language you're learning - allowing you to see how words look as well as sound - or follow along in English subtitles to help you learn how to translate.

Each week, the YouTube channel has a video about learning French, German and English, but interspersed between them are vocabulary training, verb lessons and grammar explanations to help your training and offer linguistic new challenges.

Although you can subscribe to the Easy Languages channel and simply watch the teaching videos, other really handy ones offer useful catch-up refresher lessons if you're jetting off soon and don't have much time to learn, like "10 Phrases for asking directions in Italian" or "10 Phrases for using transport in Arabic."

3. Babbel

- Price: Free iOS / Android (Subscription costs £7.99 / $9.99 / AU$14.99 for one month.)

Available on both iOS and Android, Babbel teaches you how to learn a language from local speakers with things you'll actually want to say, rather than long lists of verb conjugations to memorise.

The list is pretty comprehensive as you can learn 14 languages using Babbel at present, including Spanish, German, Russian and Indonesian.

The lessons come in 15 minute chunks, which lets you slip in a lesson during a train ride and perfect for a quick set of lessons before a holiday when you don't have to time to master the foundations.

The user experience is rather basic but entices repeat lessons through audio, visuals and written word testing - as well as different levels and a chance to review everything you've done so far so you gain a sense of language understanding.

Many Babbel lessons are free, but to use the course properly you'll need to pay for a subscription, which begins at £7.99 / $13 / AU$18 for one month.

4. Memrise

- Price: Free iOS / Android (Subscription costs £6.99 / $8.99 / around AU$13.99 for one month.)

Memrise is a simple and colourful app that currently offers a great variety of languages - but that's nothing new on this list. What impresses us here is that the app teaches you variations of languages for different countries, so you can learn to speak Spanish in Mexico or Spain to learn some of the cultural nuances.

Curiously this app is built around a narrative that you're a space detective on the mission to other worlds and need to learn the language to fit in - and the app is filled with space imagery as a result. It makes it all feel sweeter and easier, but isn't entirely necessary in actually helping you learn.

The Memrise app also has an offline mode, which makes it really useful for learning during your commute - especially if you travel somewhere that has frequent data-sparse spots.

The developers also tout the app's adaptive learning tech, which means it'll make small tweaks to the way it teaches you based on your learning style and how you perform, which would mean you'd learn at the right speed for you rather than the random speed decided by an app creator.

5. Rosetta Stone

- Price: iOS / Android (subscription needed, starting at £240 / $89)

Speak to anyone alive in the 1960s about Rosetta Stone and they'll talk about the days when one needed to buy huge boxes of records to learn Dutch - this teaching platform has been around for a long time and as such has a heritage in teaching many the tricks of a new tongue.

Luckily for lazy, app-loving types, the company has created lessons for the smartphone for on-the-go learning that packs years of teaching smarts into a small screen-friendly package.

Like many of the other apps on this list, it does away with traditional language learning styles (such as flashcards or lots of memorisation) and instead focuses on the basics you actually need like greetings, shopping terms and useful phrases.

Each lesson is presented in a minimal, yet colorful, way to keep you entertained when you're getting through the sea of teaching. You work through lessons gradually and in each you'll be able to read, write, speak and listen to absorb the teachings effectively.

The developers of the Rosetta Stone app are touting its speech recognition tech too, designed to make speaking into the app more accurate and offers best-in-class accent training too.

This article is brought to you in association with Tesco Mobile

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How to keep your Mac’s camera from spying on you, no tape required

Macworld How to keep your Mac's camera from spying on you, no tape required

It's the staple of all hacker and government-conspiracy fiction, not to mention quite a number of horror films: You're being watched through your hacked computer or phone or through a hijacked surveillance camera feed. And, unfortunately, this is well-reasoned paranoia in the real world, because to an operating system, a camera is just another file that can be read and relayed.

Earlier this year, in response to the news and to reader queries, I went into detail with a few ways you could disable microphone input in software and hardware on a Mac. Video is surprisingly (or not so surprisingly) easier to block: You can simply put a piece of tape over a lens.

Security guru Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist at the ACLU, told an interviewer in August, "the best bang-for-buck when it comes to privacy…is putting a sticker or a Band-Aid over your webcam on your laptop." That's what Mark Zuckerberg did, and he also covered his mic—which, as I noted in the previous article, doesn't help nearly as much as audio will still bleed through.

Audio and video tapping don't lend themselves per se to mass surveillance, despite the NSA reportedly recording enormous amounts of phone calls and video sessions and using software to find words and people of interest. Even its alleged efforts represent a fraction of all conversations, much less when you're not actively engaged in an online A/V conversation with someone.

Soghoian explained in the above interview the likelihood of you being spied upon individually, which is worth a glance. Most people are unlikely targets, but any activist, any member of a group that finds itself in the minority, and anyone who someone else might feasibly have a grudge against could find themselves in the crosshairs of audio- and video-tapping malware or products.

Students and workers with equipment provided to them could also be monitored without their knowledge. The best-known incident, but absolutely not the only case, is when a school near Philadelphia revealed to a student they were watching him at home on a school-owned computer. The school district later settled for over $600,000.

So what you can do besides tape? Some new and existing software for macOS can help.

Scotch that recording

There's a bit of chicken-and-egg problem with software tools that monitor, report on, and block access to microphones and cameras: they're susceptible to malware, too. Software designed to hijack your A/V would likely be savvy enough to check whether kernel extensions or other software is also monitoring devices, and would try to disable or mislead them.

But the more widely spread malware is—that is, the less targeted for a very high-value individual or group—the less sophisticated it is, and the more likely it will give itself away.

Micro Snitch alerts you when mics and cameras activate.

I wrote about Micro Snitch ($4) in my column on microphones, and it alerts you when built-in and some third-party video cameras activate as well.

The OverSight menu lets you know what it's monitoring and what's in use.

Security researcher Patrick Wardle has a passel of free apps designed to help you protect your privacy and system integrity, and his OverSight will monitor not just for usage, but "piggybacking." This is a technique seen in malware that can tap into a stream being used for FaceTime, Skype, or local recording, so the camera, mic, or both are already active when the surveillance starts. OverSight will pop up an Allow/Block warning with details about what triggered it.

And a free version CameraGuard alerts you to use of your camera. A paid version ($40) adds microphone blocking, and its maker says it uses heuristics to identify likely unwanted audio and video uses.

It's hard to recommend one above another, except for cost, because until malware strikes (or you intentionally install a known example to test on an unpatched system), it's impossible to predict whether one will perform better than another.

OverSight can also warn you if an app tries to tap into an active audio or video stream.

But whichever you pick, pairing it with new software like Little Flocker and Wardle's BlockBlock, which I wrote about recently, could help prevent software from running that tries to disable monitoring software or hijack active streams.

But what about an iPhone or iPad?

It's much more complicated in iOS, because you don't have access to the operating system's innards and iPhones are more fragile. While iOS has a strong security track record in terms of exploits that have made it into the wild, plenty of severe flaws have been found and patched, and may have been used to target individuals. Recently, I wrote about the three-exploit package deployed against a human-rights activist's iPhone in the United Arab Emirates, which—had it been successful—would have allowed remote audio and video interception on demand by the attackers.

You can simply put a black opaque sticker over the front-facing camera, or get a case that obscures both the front and back cameras.

It's hard to argue that Apple could do more with iOS, because the locked-down nature of the system prevents the casual installation of third-party software that might commit unwanted acts and more serious attempts to quietly subvert your privacy. Any software that manage to hijack your mic or camera on an iOS device is the kind of thing that won't go undiscovered in the wild for long, given how many researchers are watching for just this kind of attack.

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