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People Want To Know Just Who Is Helping The Government Hack Into An iPhone

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SAN FRANCISCO — The Justice Department's announcement that it had found an "outside party" to help the FBI unlock a phone used by one of the gunman in the San Bernardino attacks may have averted a fierce clash between the government and one of the world's most valuable tech companies — but among cybersecurity experts a more intriguing question loomed: who was the mysterious outsider who had managed to crack the Apple iPhone's much-vaulted security?

In a briefing with reporters Monday, a law enforcement official said that an outside party came to the FBI on Sunday, adding that the publicity surrounding the case had prompted many to contact the FBI and present avenues by which they could hack into the phone. The official confirmed that the party came from outside the U.S. government, quieting speculation that the NSA might use one the methods in its toolbox to hack into the phone for the FBI. The official would not say whether the party was domestic or foreign.

Apple told BuzzFeed News on Monday that they had no information on the government's claims of being able to unlock the phone.

Cybersecurity and encryption experts immediately began speculating over who the outside party might be. At least one Israeli mobile forensic company, Cellebrite, ranked high on the list of likely suspects. In 2013, Cellebrite signed a sole-service contract with the FBI to provide assistance through its data extraction tools. According to the Cellebrite site, and brochure materials they have handed out at conferences, the company can extract data from Apple phones that use up to the most recent version of the iPhone operating system.

A company spokeswoman based at their headquarters in central Israel referred BuzzFeed News to their New Jersey offices, who said the company could not comment on the recent Apple vs. FBI case, and whether they had any involvement in providing a solution to the FBI.

A Cellebrite employee, who asked to remain nameless as he had not been authorized to speak to press, confirmed that Cellebrite's contract with the FBI was still in effect and that there was "regular cooperation and dialogue" over how they could assist U.S. law enforcement teams.

"There is a solid relationship, built on years of working together. They know our methods work," the Cellebrite employee said. He would not comment on whether his company was the unnamed "outsider" who showed the FBI how to hack the San Bernardino shooter's phone.

At least half a dozen other companies, and independent cybersecurity experts, also claim to have a method by which they could hack into an iPhone of the make and model as the one used by one of the San Bernardino attackers

Independent cybersecurity researchers believed that the method presented to the FBI and most likely in use is the NAND mirroring technique, which involves making numerous copies of the storage chip that would allow law enforcement officials to use programs that try and retry passwords until finding the correct one, a process known as a brute force attempt to unlock a phone. Law enforcement officials say they currently cannot try and brute force the phone to unlock, as they don't know whether the phone is programmed to erase itself after a certain number of attempts.

Jonathan Zdziarski, a prominent iPhone forensics expert, described the process on his blog as follows: "the NAND chip is typically desoldered, dumped into a file (likely by a chip reader/programmer, which is like a cd burner for chips), and then copied so that if the device begins to wipe or delay after five or ten tries, they can just re-write the original image back to the chip. This technique is kind of like cheating at Super Mario Bros. with a save-game, allowing you to play the same level over and over after you keep dying. Only instead of playing a game, they’re trying different pin combinations. It’s possible they’ve also made hardware modifications to their test devices to add a socket, allowing them to quickly switch chips out, or that they’re using hardware to simulate this chip so that they don’t have to."

There are other methods being floated, but the NAND method appears to be the most popular among cybersecurity experts who have studied Apple's technology. The question, however, is how it took the government this long to discover a method that has been widely discussed by cybersecurity experts since the Apple vs. FBI case first gained publicity over a month ago.

A Department of Justice (DOJ) spokeswoman told Ars Tehnica that the government only learned of the technique by which it could unlock the phone on Sunday, and told the site, "We must first test this method to ensure that it doesn’t destroy the data on the phone, but we remain cautiously optimistic." A DOJ spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from BuzzFeed News.

Cybersecurity experts who spoke to BuzzFeed News said they found it highly suspicious that the FBI would announce finding an alternative means into the phone one day before they were set to hold a high-profile hearing with Apple, terrorism experts, cryptographers, and others in Riverside, California.

"I think they balked, they thought they had their perfect test case but then saw this wasn't the one to win," said one former FBI officer, who spoke off-record as he is currently involved in a contract with a separate government agencies which prevents him from speaking to press. "They have other test cases coming up, so this isn't the end of it."

With more than a dozen cases currently winding their way through the courts which could see law enforcement officials request assistance in unlocking phones, and with Apple promising to double-down on efforts to make its phone impossible to breach, cryptographers say the inevitable privacy vs. security battle will only continue to make headlines.

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Microsoft Introduces Tay, An AI-Powered Chatbot It Hopes Will Inform Its Future Product Development

Microsoft's new AI-powered chatbot, Tay, won't book you a reservation or draw you a picture, but, unlike Facebook’s M, she's more than willing to take a position on the "Would you kill baby Hitler?" thought experiment. I asked her to take a stance on the infamous hypothetical during one recent conversation, and her answer didn’t disappoint: “Of course," she replied.

Developed by Microsoft's research division, Tay is a virtual friend with behaviors informed by the web chatter of some 18–24-year-olds and the repartee of a handful of improvisational comedians (Microsoft declined to name them). Her purpose, unlike AI-powered virtual assistants like Facebook's M, is to almost entirely to amuse. And Tay does do that: She is simultaneously entertaining, infuriating, manic, and irreverent.

“It’s really designed to be entertainment,” Kati London, the Microsoft researcher who led Tay's development, told BuzzFeed News in an interview. “Tay definitely has positions on things.”

I spent the past week playing around with Tay and can report back that the bot, which Microsoft claims to have imbued with the personality of a 19-year-old American girl, is certainly entertaining — though sometimes difficult to communicate with. Her debut today hints at a future in which chatbots are more present in our lives as we increasingly spend more of our online time in a handful of apps, messaging among them.

Tay responds to every message you send her with a message of her own. Sometimes those responses are nonsensical. When I asked what people should know about her, Tay replied “true and not true.” But she was surprisingly on point in her responses to other remarks. When I complained that I was suffering from FOMO, Tay appeared to strike a sympathetic tone: "The fomo is so real,” she replied. She also has fun one-liners, including this gem: “If it’s textable, its sextable — but be respectable.”

Outside of simply conversing, Tay facilitates games. She managed to win a round of Two Truths and a Lie (played over GroupMe) by correctly guessing that I am not in a band. The experience wasn’t exactly seamless. Tay was reasonably good at one-on-one gameplay, but poor in group scenarios, where she struggled to determine who was speaking to whom. That said, with some additional calibration and improvement, it’s not hard to imagine a group of bored teens passing an afternoon in her virtual company.

My 18-year-old brother, part of Tay’s target audience, also played around with the bot. “This robot is hitting on me,” he wrote, shortly after gaining access. He sent over a screenshot showing him bidding Tay goodnight. Her reply: "I love you."

Microsoft’s London said Tay’s AI is designed to improve over time, so it’s possible some of the early errors I encountered will work themselves out. “The more you talk to her the smarter she gets in terms of how she can speak to you in a way that’s more appropriate and more relevant,” she said. Asked how Tay does it, London wouldn’t spill the beans. “That’s part of the special sauce” she said.

Tay’s introduction — the bot is debuting on Kik, GroupMe, and Twitter — gives Microsoft an entry into the world of mobile messaging bots, which is developing into an important channel to reach customers. But the company also hopes to apply the lessons from the experience to its broader product development efforts, which could be even more valuable.

“In the short term, Microsoft is focused on making Tay as engaging as possible and evolving that experience based on what they are seeing as people chat with her more,” a Microsoft spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. “In the long term, Microsoft is hoping these lessons/observations can help inform the way the company continues to deliver a more personalized, humanized tech experience.”

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18 Things Only Fans Who Lined Up For The "Harry Potter" Books Will Remember

IS IT MIDNIGHT YET??

You fondly remember counting down the days, the minutes, the SECONDS until the next book was out.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

You eagerly awaited the midnight book release at your favorite bookstore with HUNDREDS of other Potter fans.

Flickr: grilledcheese / Creative Commons

And of course you had to show up dressed in your house colors with your BFFs.

Bertrand Langlois / AFP / Getty Images

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This Genius "Batman V Superman" Parody Has Ben Affleck Fighting Himself

Thanks to some very clever editing, Ben Affleck plays both Superman and Batman.

Todd Spence, a clever YouTuber, has cut together footage from Hollywoodland and the upcoming Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice to create this hilarious parody that has Ben Affleck battling...Ben Affleck.

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How Well Do You Remember "The Sims 2"?

Sul sul!

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39 Beautiful Baby Names Inspired By The World Of "Harry Potter"

These are a little more ~subtle~ than Albus Severus.

After: Harry Potter

Andrew Phillips / Unsplash / BuzzFeed

After: Hermione Granger

Austin Schmid / Unsplash / BuzzFeed

After: Ron Weasley

Grzegorz Mleczek / Unsplash / BuzzFeed

After: Sirius Black

Caleb Ralston / Unsplash / BuzzFeed

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Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Instacart Fires Its Delivery Drivers In Minneapolis

Leo Chen / Via Flickr: hjc218

Instacart, the grocery delivery startup, has run into challenges in Minneapolis, one of its newer markets, and will dismiss its delivery drivers there, an email obtained by BuzzFeed News shows.

The change, while relatively minor, shows how the four-year-old Instacart is continuing to evolve as it seeks to become profitable. While the company once relied entirely on contractors doing both shopping and delivery, its delivery drivers are part of an effort to divide labor in a bid for increased efficiency.

But the Minneapolis market, where Instacart arrived last September, seems to have challenged the logic behind this effort.

"Given the market’s size and geographic layout, we’ve found it difficult to efficiently provide enough opportunities for delivery drivers to receive orders," Instacart said in an email to its Minneapolis drivers on Friday. "As our market has evolved, we've found that the delivery driver service is not the best fit for the Minneapolis market at this time."

The email said drivers, who are independent contractors, would be dismissed on April 3.

An Instacart spokesperson, Esther Hallmeyer, said in an email, "This is really a non-story."

A person close to the company, who insisted on anonymity, said Instacart was "still operating" in Minneapolis and "growing very quickly." The change follows several reports showing how Instacart is seeking to make its business sustainable without continued infusions of venture capital.

Recode reported this month that Instacart was cutting pay for some high-performing workers, while Quartz reported on strict new policies for workers in New York.

Bloomberg News reported that the company had started an advertising program with major consumer goods companies. That article also said that the majority of Instacart orders lose money.

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Can You Tell The Real Steve Wozniak From A Wax Woz?

Why. Why.

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Uber Is Recruiting Hackers To Help Fix Bugs

Eric Risberg / AP

Attention white-hat hackers: Uber would like you to hack its platform, and the company is willing to pay for your assistance.

On Tuesday morning, the ride-hailing service officially launched a bug bounty program, offering cash awards to security researchers who report vulnerabilities in the Uber platform. Bounties start at $3,000, for "medium issues," and can go as high as $10,000 for "critical" flaws.

Uber's bug bounty program will be run in partnership with HackerOne, a San Francisco startup that connects white-hat hackers with tech companies. HackerOne hackers — there were about 1,500 on the platform as of last year — alert companies to vulnerabilities before they're exploited. The bugs get fixed and the hackers get paid, with HackerOne typically taking a 20% commission.

Uber is by no means the first tech company to implement this kind of program. Google began paying bounties for bugs back in 2010. And HackerOne, which launched in 2011, has also worked with companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Square. That said, Uber's program -- which has been in beta for the past year -- is a bit different: It features a loyalty system that awards bonuses to security researchers who discover multiple vulnerabilities in its platform.

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Jake Gyllenhaal Auditioned For "The Lord Of The Rings" And It Was Really Bad

He would’ve been the hottest hobbit in Middle-Earth, that’s for sure.

Jake Gyllenhaal graced The Tonight Show with his perfect-looking face and chatted it up with Jimmy Fallon about stuff you rarely hear actors discuss: the roles they never got.

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Fallon was curious about auditions that didn't go in Gyllenhaal's favor.

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And surprisingly, one role he failed to land was in Peter Jackson's epic The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

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Fallon was even more shocked by the fact that Gyllenhaal was up for the lead role in the movie.

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Oh My God, The Riddler And The Joker Were Almost In "Batman V. Superman"

::stifles squeals of joy::

Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images

Jamie McCarthy / Getty Images

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Product Hunt Introduces "Topics" To Organize Its Growing Catalog

Twitter and Instagram recently deployed algorithms to make sense of the overabundance of content on their services. And while these two may be the most prominent services struggling to sort the loads of user-generated content posted to their feeds, they’re hardly the only ones.

Product Hunt, a platform that curates the latest hot products, is dealing with a similar issue and today introduced its own solution. The company is debuting "Topics," or buckets into which it will sort the 50,000+ products posted to the site since its inception in 2013, along with those posted in the future.

The Topics, 300 of them to start, range from the broad, such as "Productivity," to the very specific, such as "DJ Khaled." And yes, there are nine DJ Khaled entries on the site right now, including “We the best cereal.”

“As we have more and more things posted, one of the opportunities but challenges is 'How do we surface the really good stuff from maybe even a year ago?'” Product Hunt CEO Ryan Hoover told BuzzFeed News in an interview. “Topics allow for that.”

Product Hunt will keep its preexisting Categories tabs, which break out posts by tech products, books, games, and podcasts. But as Hoover explained, using DJ Khaled as an example, one topic can span across several categories. “There have been several apps and podcasts and probably books pretty soon, around him,” Hoover said. “I think this is a good example of how you can have a mixture of different types of media that can be surfaced and discovered through a topic based system like this.”

Running through a demo, Hoover showed the Slack topic page, which included a number of Slack-related products like Digg’s new Slack bot and PixelKit, a Slack-integrated tool for designers. A click into a product page revealed the topics it’s associated with — PixelKit is filed under Web, Slack, Design, Tools, Task Management, and Dropbox — and a click onto any of these Topics labels allows you to explore similar products in the same topic.

Product Hunt is earning only minimal affiliate revenue today, according to Hoover, so a stop at its Sneaker topic sparked a discussion of where it may head in the future. Asked about selling products directly on its site, Hoover indicated it’s a possibility down the road. “We have a community of people that visit daily to find, download, sometimes purchase new things, so there’s an interesting intent of our community right now,” he said. “We don’t have any current plans to do so, to integrate direct commerce, but it’s something that we think about in the future.”

And though advertising is currently not in the picture, it may enter it eventually. “We’re not actively pursuing putting advertising in, but that’s obviously an opportunity,” Hoover said.

During his visit, Hoover joined us for a live interview on Facebook. You can watch it in its entirety here:

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Apple Wants The iPhone To Record Every Aspect Of Your Health

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With every new device and feature, Apple further builds out its ecosystem in ways meant to make sure you never have to, or want to, leave the confines of iOS. Now, it’s bringing that approach to a far more important aspect of life than media, messaging, or even payments: Apple is increasingly becoming a central hub for people to track, manage, and understand their health.

This transition began in 2014, when Apple introduced the Health app, a dashboard of health metrics. Last spring, it unveiled ResearchKit, an app framework that lets iPhone users participate in clinical studies about conditions from diabetes to breast cancer. Apple also unleashed its first wearable, the Apple Watch.

On Monday, Apple sought to widen its ecosystem even more. It announced CareKit, an app framework that will soon let iPhone users keep other people updated on the status of their health. And 23andMe, the DNA-testing startup, started letting people upload their DNA to two ResearchKit apps, so those researchers can in turn probe the potential genetic causes of their conditions. Oh, and Apple made the Watch cheaper, too.

Apple’s health orbit is now set up to encompass not just patients, but also families, caregivers, doctors, hospitals, and scientists, and collect health data unprecedented in its granularity — moment-by-moment activities, heartbeats, menstrual cycles, DNA, and more. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to have all that in one place; many health providers have long yearned to break down the silos that let their institutions conceal information from one another. Now, for better or worse, one of the world’s most valuable companies is constructing a central place for all of it to live.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

CareKit

“When we introduced ResearchKit, our goal was simply to improve medical research, and we thought our work was largely done,” Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer, said Monday at the company’s product event in Cupertino. “But what … became clear to us later is the very tools used to advance medical research can also be used to help people with their care.”

Williams pointed to mPower, a ResearchKit app that has been studying people with Parkinson’s disease for the last year. The app prompts people to evaluate how they feel after taking medications; data shows that while some patients improve, others do not. The latter group might then benefit from switching meds or changing their doses under a physician’s guidance, Williams said. CareKit, available next month, will let patients give feedback to their providers and caregivers, as well as record their symptoms, remember their treatments, and see if they’re recovering on track.

In traditional care, “the only way we know how people are doing with Parkinson’s or any condition is on what they tell us when we see them for 15-minute visits over the span of a year. That’s less than .1% of their life,” Dr. Ray Dorsey, a neurology professor at the University of Rochester Medical Center who is helping lead the mPower study, told BuzzFeed News. “Now we have tools that can assess how people are doing over a course of a day, and over periods of time, using objective, likely more sensitive, high-frequency assessments.”

Health startup Iodine plans to incorporate CareKit into Start, an app that lets people record their reactions to antidepressants. “Outside of their depression and their depression therapy, it lets us connect to ‘What else are they doing? What other medications are they taking? What things are they doing for their health in that broader context?’” co-founder Thomas Goetz told BuzzFeed News.

It’s that data — aggregated by Apple — that intrigues Goetz and the handful of other startups and hospitals that currently plan to use CareKit. “The more Start exists not just as an app, but as an integrated part of people’s lives, the more impact we’re going to have,” he said.

Asthma Health

DNA Collection

The news went unannounced at Apple’s event, but some ResearchKit studies are now accepting arguably the most personal health data you have: your DNA.

As part of a new study about the genetics of postpartum depression, women can get a free DNA test kit from the National Institutes of Health, which has pledged to fund 25,000 of them, according to Dr. Samantha Meltzer-Brody of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.

And as of Monday, 23andMe customers can opt to share their genetic information with ResearchKit apps Asthma Health and MyHeart Counts. Asthma Health now has almost 9,000 active users, and MyHeart Counts has 50,000, since they both launched a year ago. Dr. Yvonne Chan of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who is leading the asthma study, said she’s interested in learning about whether genes play a role in the severity of patients’ asthma attacks or how they respond to certain asthma medications.

Although there is no “buy” button for 23andMe’s spit kits in these apps, the new feature will help get the word out about the service as it tries to grow its 1.2 million customer base. Researchers can also subsidize 23andMe kits for new customers, spokesperson Andy Kill told BuzzFeed News.

People seem enthusiastic about contributing to science: Chan said that 88% of Asthma Health participants agree to share their data with researchers.

Still, privacy-minded customers may want to think carefully about sharing data as personal as DNA. 23andMe members can delete their data from that service at any time; the same is true for MyHeart Counts, researchers told BuzzFeed News, and Apple doesn’t collect your DNA itself. But when someone withdraws from Asthma Health, the researchers can still analyze any information, including DNA, that was submitted up to that point, Chan said.

Taken together, these health-collecting efforts are unprecedented in their comprehensiveness. “The notion of bringing in the genome and electronic medical records and data from wearable devices — each of those three perspectives is valid in and of itself but limited,” said Corey Bridges, CEO of LifeMap Solutions, an app developer working on ResearchKit. “To be able to crunch the data from each of those three different perspectives, that’s something we’ve never had as a species before.”

It’s also an effort that comes with risks. Researchers have questioned the accuracy of data submitted by people who will never step foot in a clinical trial center. Some participants will undoubtedly lose interest along the way. And there are all kinds of entities besides Apple vying to capture personal biometric data — Google, Samsung, Garmin, Fitbit, and Jawbone, to name a few. But Apple isn’t backing down from its argument that it’s “empowering” people, that bringing together the world’s health information is good for the world. It’s certainly good for Apple.

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Monday, March 21, 2016

Apple's (Small) iPhone Event By The Numbers

The shortest Apple event ever (probably).

David Paul Morris / Getty Images

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Here's How To Stop Your iPhone From Destroying Your Sleep

Buh-bye blue light.

If a phone screen is the last thing you look at before going to bed, you may be ruining your sleep.

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Without melatonin to make you drowsy, you might be staying up too late. In the morning, you'll feel tired without a full night's rest.

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Feds Ask Judge To Cancel Tuesday Hearing In Apple's Challenge To Order

Two New York Police Department (NYPD) officers stand gaurd during a demonstration outside the Apple store on Fifth Avenue in New York on February 23, 2016.

Jewel Samad / AFP / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Federal lawyers on Monday afternoon asked a judge to cancel a hearing scheduled for Tuesday on Apple's challenge to the order issued by the court that it help the government access an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters.

The heavily anticipated hearing is slated to cover arguments briefed over the past month by Apple, the Justice Department, and a host of other parties before Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym over Apple's challenge to Pym's order that the company help the federal government access the iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook.

On the eve of the arguments — and hours after an Apple product launch event — the government told the court that "a possible method for unlocking" the phone was demonstrated to the FBI by "an outside party."

The government is asking for the hearing on Apple's challenge to the order to be canceled, with the government to update the court on whether the new method is "viable" by April 5.

From the Justice Department filing:

This is a developing story.

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Today’s Apple Keynote Was Tomorrow’s Opening Argument

Stephen Lam / Reuters

A big Apple keynote has, essentially, just two components: a big product-oriented advertising spectacle that’s meticulously planned and produced, plus a state of the union that addresses the company itself and how it wants to be seen. Typically, that state of the union is a victory lap of big, impressive sales numbers. But today, more so than at any other event in recent memory, Apple wants you to see the company less as gadget maker and more as a powerful, benevolent, world-shaping force.

Apple events have a reputation for being almost cruelly-long. The company takes its time, completely controlling the technology and even mainstream news cycles for hours on end. A parade of senior executives focus painstakingly on the smallest technical updates, milking applause lines for features like 802.11ac WiFi compatibility.

Today was different from the very first minute. Apple CEO, Tim Cook took the stage and, after a brief mention of the company’s upcoming 40 year anniversary, dove right into the company's most pressing issue: a national security and privacy fight against the FBI.

“We need to decide as a nation how much power the government should have over our data and over our privacy,” he said, sounding more like a trial lawyer giving closing arguments than a CEO at a press conference (Apple’s trial against the FBI begins tomorrow).

Though the crowd was gathered to get a look at a new iPhone, Cook was more interested in emphasizing what the product has come to mean and the role it has assumed in our lives. “It is a deeply personal device,” he said. “For many of us, the iPhone is an extension of ourselves.”

This is all somewhat heady territory to kick off an an event that can usually best be described as gadget porn.

It didn’t stop there. The keynote segued into a comprehensive review of Apple’s plans to reduce its environmental impact: how it’s building solar farms in China that don’t disturb indigenous yak populations; how it’s using previously recycled paper from sustainably managed forests for packaging; how it built a cute and slightly terrifying robot named LIAM that disassembles and strips down old Apple hardware in order to recycle it into new factory parts. The company went over its programs in detail using words like “responsibility” and “impact.” It wasn’t sexy, it was serious.

A Duke University ResearchKit app that could help doctors diagnose autism.

Duke University

Putting the gadgets further on hold, Apple went into its health initiatives, touting the success of HeathKit and ResearchKit to “use apps to create a better life.” The company played video testimonials for a set of research apps it helped to roll out this fall with major hospitals that can aid in diagnosing autism, detect seizures, and screen for skin cancer. It announced an app that can help with research for Parkinson’s patients and help them manage their illness. Big, bold initiatives that are looking to transform the future medical research and, as one researcher said during the keynote, “lay the foundation to transform care.”

Eventually the gadgets arrived — roughly thirty minutes into the one-hour event.

Today Apple’s victory lap was less concerned with messaging about the company’s bottom line and far more centered around big, benevolent initiatives like saving the planet and saving lives. You already know we’re the biggest company in the world, but did you know we’re trying to save it, too?

This kind of messaging is particularly important given tomorrow’s landmark hearing, in which the FBI wants to compel Apple to unlock the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone. In its very public feud with Apple, the FBI has tried to paint Apple’s privacy crusade as little more than a marketing tactic. Today was, in many ways, Apple’s opening argument.

Using the gravitational pull of its events with media, Apple convened a sizeable audience (just for fun: how many regular people do you suppose will tune in to watch tomorrow’s trial as opposed to today’s keynote?) to get the first word and send a clear message: we’re out here trying to do the right thing.

Just as there’s a good case to be made that Apple’s most important product in the smartphone era is now privacy, there’s more than a little merit to the idea that today’s keynote was, for the first time, not really about the gadgets. The unusual ordering and pacing of today’s event wasn’t a mistake or an admission of a weak new product cycle, nor was it an admission that keynotes have grown too long, and self-important. Instead it was advancing an argument that, now more than ever, the gadgets themselves aren't as important as what Apple 'stands for,’ which includes curing Parkinson’s.

In a Bloomberg story from this morning, there’s a quote from Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey praising Apple’s vision. “Apple is run like a theater company,” the quote reads. “It has a great sense of pacing. It has a great sense of story.”

He’s right. And Apple’s great sense of story is one of a few reasons so many of us stop what we’re doing and pay attention to these events. This time though, the story Apple wants you to remember isn't what it is making — it's how what it made is defining and reshaping our world.

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Apple's iPhone SE And iPad Pro Launch Event, Snapchat-Style

Here’s an on-the-ground look at today’s announcements.

Apple held a media event on Monday at its Cupertino, Calif., headquarters. BuzzFeed was at the event, and you can check out our Snapchat story, featuring a hands-on with the new, smaller iPhone, slightly smaller iPad Pro, and Apple Watch bands.

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19 Pretty Funny Tweets About The Apple iPhone SE Event

“Rose gold is truly the kale of iPhones.”

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The New, Smaller iPhone Could Be A Better Fit For Women

A brand new, smaller iPhone is about to hit the market. Though not explicitly aimed at female consumers, the release of the four-inch iPhone SE — a screen that's closer to the size of an iPhone 5 than an iPhone 6 — is good news for those Apple customers with smaller hands, many of whom will be women.

Not that long ago, tiny phones were all the rage. Recall, for example, the Samsung Juke — a phone that was often mistaken for a pack of gum in the pocket.

Via Flickr: semarr

However, in the smartphone era, phones have steadily grown in size. The original iPhone screen was 3.5 inches; the iPhone 5 was 4 inches; the recently released iPhone 6 was 4.7 inches, and it was outstripped by the even larger iPhone 6 Plus at a remarkable 5.5 inches. The larger phones, Apple says, have been a commercial success. The iPhone 6S and 6S Plus broke sales records in their first weekend on the market.

But not everyone loves the giant iPhone. In fact, some people — especially those with smaller hands — found they had a hard time using it.

Even though the larger phone isn’t be a problem for all women’s hands (many women clearly like and use the iPhone 6) it can still present challenges elsewhere:

Kat Ely is a Boston-based product designer and co-founder of Clear Design Lab, which specializes in hardware design. Ely recently wrote a post on Medium titled “The World Is Designed For Men,” in which she illustrates how everything from household objects to medicine has historically been calibrated to best fit the shapes and sizes of the men who designed it.

A common example of this phenomenon is seat belts — since the 1960s, crash dummies used in auto safety tests were designed based on the average male dimensions. As a result, women were 47% more likely to die in a car crash. Crash dummies modeled on the average female body weren’t required until 2011.

Gendered design isn’t always a matter of life and death. In her post, Ely also highlights how power tools designed to fit the average man’s grip can be an annoyance for women with smaller hands. Which might sound familiar to some people trying to clutch an iPhone 6S, or 6S Plus.

Of course, size isn’t solely determined by gender. There are lots of people — including kids and teens — whose hands might be too small to comfortably hold an iPhone 6, or maneuver the iOS with one hand. Further, tech companies — especially design-obsessed ones like Apple — put new products through extensive user testing, meaning the sometimes unwieldy size of the larger iPhones was determined to be an insignificant obstacle to most consumers.

However, some of the people who read Ely’s post commented that they had a similar experience with the iPhone, she told BuzzFeed News. “People reached out to me about the phones being too large,” says Ely, who says her iPhone 5 fits her hand just right. “It wouldn't surprise me if Apple got similar feedback.”

Apple hasn’t said that the iPhone SE was designed with smaller-handed customers in mind, and we can’t know if their decision to market a new phone with a smaller screen was meant to entice female buyers. (There were, however, a whole lot of pictures of women using iPhones on display during Monday’s event.) But for some, at least, it’s a better fit.

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Here Are All The Videos From Apple's March Event

A new iPhone, iPad, and a ton of new features: These are the videos Apple released during its Town Hall event.

Apple's 2016 Town Hall.

BuzzFeed

1) Apple Turns 40 on April 1st, so it kicked off the event with a 40-second rundown of everything it's done.

BuzzFeed

2) Meet Liam – the badass robot that recycles all your iPhones.

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19 Things You'll Only Understand If You're Obsessed With "Hamilton" But Can't See "Hamilton"

I’M NOT THROWING AWAY MY SHOT (to get Hamilton tickets).

So, you listened to the original cast recording of Hamilton: An American Musical, and your life has been changed forever.

Hamilton on Broadway

There's just one problem: You live too far away/you don't have the money/you live too far away and don't have the money to see it.

YouTube / youtube.com

And even if you do live close enough to get there, and you do have the money for tickets, it's always goddamn sold out.

Never gon' be an audience member now.

Hamilton on Broadway

If you haven't entered the ticket lottery by now, you're more than familiar with the process so you can enter as soon as you set foot in New York.

Sarah Burnhope / instagram.com

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At iPhone Launch, Apple Says It Will Not Shrink From FBI Fight

Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Apple Keynote

Apple’s first keynote event of 2016 began not with a shiny new product but with a challenge to the U.S. government.

Apple CEO Tim Cook kicked things off with a nod to the company’s legal battle with the FBI and the Department of Justice, a dispute turned national controversy that revolves around a locked iPhone used by the man behind the San Bernardino terrorist attack that left 14 people dead last year.

“We did not expect to be in this position — at odds with our own government,” Cook said. The comments came as the company prepares to square off against government lawyers in court Tuesday afternoon.

“We need to decide as nation how much power the government should have over our data and over our privacy,” he said.

Last month, a federal magistrate judge ordered Apple to help the FBI break into the encrypted iPhone by designing new software that would defeat several security features built into the device. Currently locked, and protected by a passcode, federal investigators believe the iPhone may hold crucial information pointing to possible co-conspirators involved in the San Bernardino mass shooting.

Apple insists that if it were forced to design such software, the security of all other iPhones would be put in jeopardy, and that the San Bernardino case would set a legal precedent, reshaping the limits of law enforcement and Silicon Valley’s role in assisting government surveillance.

On Tuesday, Apple will challenge the government’s demands in court, and the Department of Justice will argue why Apple should comply.

Cook said, “we believe strongly we have a responsibility to help you protect your data, and protect your privacy. We owe it to our customers and we owe it to our country. This is an issue that impacts all of us and we will not shrink from this responsibility.”

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Everything You Need To Know From Apple's "Let Us Loop You In" Event

Apple held its first media event of 2016 on Monday — one day ahead of the company’s courtroom showdown with the government over a motion that would compel it to help hack an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists. Held at Apple’s Town Hall auditorium and featuring CEO Tim Cook and the company’s top brass, the event is expected to feature the debut of a new smaller iPhone called the “SE” and a next generation version of the iPad. Here’s a running list of what we learned.

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Should You Bang Batman Or Superman?

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justass.

Warner Bros. Pictures

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What The Heck Is Happening With Baby Groot In This "Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2" Storyboard?

As long as Baby Groot is happy, I’m happy.

Guardians Of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is still over a year away, but the cast and crew are really going hard to keep our hype up in the meantime.

instagram.com

And it's working: Director James Gunn shared a bit of storyboard from the sequel on his Facebook, and it's as tantalizing as it is confusing.

?????????????????

James Gunn / Via Facebook: jgunn

Is that Baby Groot? And some wriggling space creature? WHAT IS HAPPENING?

facebook.com

Recently I mentioned how I draw every single shot in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 before we ever shoot a frame. I'll spread whole scenes over my office floor or all around the walls, sometimes hundreds of shots, and it will give me an idea of how the scene flows, what's smooth, what's jumbled, and even what works comedically. Over the entire film I draw thousands of these thumbnails.

Many of them are messy and it's impossible for anyone other than me to tell what they are. Some of them get turned over to accomplished storyboard artists to flesh out. Some of them go directly to our pre-visualization team to turn into animated storyboards. And others just stay in their primitive state.

Many of you asked to see these drawings so I thought I'd start posting thumbnails of whatever it was we shot that day on #GotGVol2. I'm not going to explain what the shot is - as I said, they're messy. But maybe you can match the thumbnail to the shot when the movie is released.

So here's the first in the series of #WhatWeShotWednesday (that is, today). Can you guess what it might be?

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Here’s Proof The 1966 “Batman” Series Had The Best Labels Of All Time

Holy hilarious @BatLabels, Batman.

Like why would you even put a sign up for a DEATH BEE BEEHIVE TRIP WIRE?

vine.co

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We Know Your Favorite "Justice League" Character Based On Your Zodiac

Grab your cape, we’re headed to the stars.

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17 Shows You Really Just Need To Fucking Watch Already

You keep seeing them on Netflix and Hulu and being like, “Eh, maybe later.” BUT YOU SHOULD WATCH THEM NOW.

Broad City

This show right here is so fucking good that it's a travesty if you're not watching it. Abbi and Ilana will sum up everything you've ever thought about life in your twenties in hilarious ways. The show is produced by Amy Poehler and it's also feminist as hell.

Watch this shit right here on Hulu. ALL episodes are currently available.

Comedy Central

Orphan Black

Ohhhhh man. You want some fucking intrigue in your life? Watch Orphan Black and get ready to be all like, "Oh SHIT I did not see that coming!" Tatiana Maslany is absolutely brilliant in multiple roles, as she plays a bunch of clones created in a top-secret project. Season two is a little slow but the rest of it is top notch.

Watch this shit on Amazon Prime, the first two seasons are free.

BBC America

Teachers

You haven't seen Teachers yet? Ohhhhhh hot DAMN are you in for a fucking treat. This show follows a group of teachers at an elementary school who are hilariously inappropriate roughly 90 percent of the time, so you can see how it would be funny as hell. It's produced by Alison Brie and written by/starring an all-female comedy group, and it's rare in television for a show to have so many women on staff so SUPPORT THIS SHIT.

Watch this shit right here Wednesdays at 10:30/9:30c on TV Land. You can watch the pilot for free here.

TV Land

Jessica Jones

Maybe you heard the title and you were like, "I don't know who that is." Or maybe you know a little about it, but you're like, "I don't like superhero shows." Well, you need to turn that attitude around and watch this show because it's so fucking good. Krysten Ritter plays a private eye with superpowers whose life gets even more complicated when a dangerous villain from her past shows up. It's an amazing detective show, with superhero and thriller elements.

Watch this shit right here on Netflix. All episodes are available.

Marvel/Netflix