A dramatic new twist in the ongoing battle between Apple and the FBI unfolded on Monday night when the U.S. Department of Justice asked a federal judge to vacate its hearing with Apple that was scheduled for Tuesday. The Cupertino, California-based company was set to begin arguing its case after a judge ordered it to supply the FBI with tools that would allow it to break into an iPhone that had previously belonged to San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook.

In the DOJ’s request, it stated that a third party may have a means of helping the FBI to break into the iPhone in question without Apple’s help, and the FBI now has until April 5th to provide an update. While the agency refused to disclose who or what this mysterious third party might be, it looks like the company’s cover has now been blown.

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Via Reuters, Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Wednesday that it has learned the identity of the company that will assist the FBI in hacking its way past the recovered iPhone’s security. According to the report, mobile forensic software and solutions provider Cellebrite is the company in question.

“Cellebrite mobile forensics solutions give access to and unlock the intelligence of mobile data sources to extend investigative capabilities, accelerate investigations, unify investigative teams and produce solid evidence,” the company says on its website. “Cellebrite’s range of mobile forensic products, the UFED Series, enable the bit-for-bit extraction and in-depth decoding and analysis of data from thousands of mobile devices, including feature phones, smartphones, portable GPS devices, tablets and phones manufactured with Chinese chipsets.”

The iPhone recovered from Farook is protected by a lock screen PIN code or password, and all iOS devices with lock screen protection are encrypted. The FBI had requested that Apple build a special version of iOS that would allow it to use a brute force attack to guess the phone’s PIN or password without risking the deletion of the data after too many failed attempts, but we’ve already explained some of the many other ways the FBI might be able to break into the iPhone. It’s unclear if Cellebrite plans to use any of those methods.

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Though it took a few years to get there, Apple with iOS 8 finally introduced support for third-party keyboards, thereby allowing iPhone and iPad users to install and enjoy custom keyboards for the very first time. Looking to get in on the action, The Verge reports that Google has been busy developing its own third-party keyboard for iOS.

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Though there’s no release date just yet, the report relays that Google has been testing the device internally for months now. And not surprisingly, the company is aiming to position ‘search’ as a central part of the keyboard experience. The underlying goal? Increase the number of Google searches coming from iOS devices.
Like its Android counterpart, the Google keyboard for iOS employs gesture-based typing, so you can slide your finger from one letter to the next and let Google guess your intended word. Tap the Google logo and you can access traditional web search. It also appears to have distinct buttons for pictures and GIF searches, both presumably powered by Google image search. The keyboard is visually distinct from the standard Android keyboard, which incorporates voice search but no text or image-based searching.
As anyone who has used Facebook Messenger can attest, quick and easy access to GIFs and photos is remarkably addicting and fun. While it remains to be seen how functional, efficient and fast Google’s keyboard app is, the upcoming keyboard app certainly sounds intriguing.

The report further adds that Google is particularly interested in mobile search on iOS because smartphone users on the whole don’t do as much web searching as their desktop counterparts. And with mobile ads commanding higher rates than desktop ads, it stands to reason that Google views increasing the number of web searches emanating from iOS devices as a strategic priority.

Additionally, it’s worth pointing out that Siri has also eaten into Google search volume. Indeed, Google chairman Eric Schmidt once called virtual assistants like Siri a strategic threat to Google’s core business. While Siri undoubtedly has its flaws, it still performs remarkably well for basic queries that users previously had to rely upon Google to answer. Today, an iPhone user looking for, say, nearby sandwich shops is much more likely to either use Siri or a third-party app like AroundMe to see what his or her food options are.

To date, third party keyboards are beloved by many users, but there’s no denying that such apps remain a particularly niche category within the App Store. That said, the cache of Google’s brand will undoubtedly bolster the app’s visibility and perhaps popularity once it becomes available for download.

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Streaming music is hardly the new kid on the block, but it’s seemingly grown exponentially in the past few years thanks to services like Pandora, Spotify, and most recently, Apple Music. With 2015 now behind us, the RIAA today released its year-end sales report and highlighted how revenue from streaming music over the past year generated more revenue than digital downloads, an industry first.

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The report reads in part:
The streaming category includes revenues from subscription services (such as paid versions of Spotify, TIDAL, and Apple Music, among others), streaming radio service revenues that are distributed by SoundExchange (like Pandora, SiriusXM, and other Internet radio), and other non-subscription on-demand streaming services (such as YouTube, Vevo, and ad-supported Spotify).
For the year gone by, the streaming sites mentioned above generated $2.4 billion, accounting for 34.3% of all industry revenue. Digital downloads meanwhile, a tally which includes both digital album and singles sales, accounted for 34% of record label revenue. And pulling up the rear, physical music sales accounted for approximately 28% of industry revenue for the year gone by.

All told, the music industry enjoyed revenue of $7 billion last year, a modest 0.9% increase from 2014. As the report highlights, revenue from digital downloads and physical sales continue to trend downwards but are being offset by a corresponding increase in streaming subscriptions.

“In 2015, digital music subscription services reached new all-time highs, generating more than $1 billion in revenues for the first time, and averaging nearly 11 million paid subscriptions for the year,” RIAA CEO Cary Sherman said. “Heading into 2016, the number of subscriptions swelled even higher — more than 13 million by the end of December — holding great promise for this year.”

On a related note, Spotify earlier this week disclosed that it now has more than 30 million paid subscribers.

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When you send an email to someone, it goes through something called Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), a standard that was first developed in the 1980s and that lacks the ability to fully encrypt our messages. Because of this, a group of engineers from several different companies — including from Microsoft, Google, Comcast and LinkedIn — are working on a new proposal that would update the standard to ensure full encryption for all email messages.

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The proposal, which was submitted recently to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), outlines a new mechanism called Simple Mail Transfer Protocol Strict Transport Security (SMTP STS). Its main goal is to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks that have compromised past efforts at making SMTP a more secure protocol.

The IETF notes that under current protocols, “any attacker who can delete parts of the SMTP session (such as the “250 STARTTLS” response) or who can redirect the entire SMTP session (perhaps by overwriting the resolved MX record of the delivery domain) can perform such a downgrade or interception attack” on any messages sent.

The idea with the new proposal is to give message transfer agents (MTAs) that send emails the ability to watch out for certain red flags that would bounce sent messages back to their recipients if there are hints that they’ve been compromised. It essentially works like this: When you send a message to a destination that supports the new SMTP STS standard, the MTAs will automatically check to see if its destination supports encryption and if it has a valid certificate. In theory, this would prevent the message from being intercepted by a malicious server along the way to its destination, thus blocking attempted man-in-the-middle attacks.

This standard is still just a proposal and there are obviously a lot of details to be worked out before it gets rolled out worldwide. To get more technical details on how it would work, check out the IETF’s full page on it at this link.

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If you’ve ever been a goalie in hockey, you know that hockey pucks are not soft little discs. In fact, they’re very hard and they really hurt when they’re flying at you at over 100 miles per hour. So I was pretty surprised to see a hockey puck get crushed like a grape in a wild new viral video posted by the Finnish Hydraulic Press Channel on YouTube.

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In retrospect, however, I shouldn’t have been at all surprised that a hockey puck wouldn’t be able to withstand pressure from the hydraulic press since it’s made of solid vulcanized black rubber.

All the same, it’s a bit jarring to see how easily the puck gets squished under the power of the press, as you can see in this screencap…

…and it’s not too long before the entire thing simply bursts apart…

…leaving only these remains behind…

“Hockey puck exploded!” exclaimed the man making the video.

It sure did, my friend. It sure did.

The entire Hydraulic Press Channel is filled with similarly amusing videos, if you’re interested in this sort of thing. The channel bills itself as the only place for people who “wanna see stuff getting crushed by hydraulic press” and it does not disappoint.

Check out the whole thing below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxDycguIWXI&feature=youtu.be

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How would you like to go down a transparent slide that’s mounted over 1,000 feet in the air? If that sounds like your thing, then you’ll definitely want to check out the new Skyslide that’s being built on the side of the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles. Per The Los Angeles Times, the slide will begin on the building’s 70th floor and will take riders down to its 69th floor. While this doesn’t seem like much of a drop, the slide itself is about 45 feet in length and will give you a bird’s eye view of the entire city on your way down.

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As The Los Angeles Times notes, this slide is part of a gigantic $50 million renovation of the U.S. Bank Tower, which happens to be the tallest skyscraper on the West Coast. Riding on it will not be free, however: You’ll have to pay $8 to take a trip on the Skyslide, and that’s after you’ve already paid $25 for access to the new Skyspace complex where it will be located.

Even so, riding on the Skyslide looks like a lot of fun. Gizmodo has a terrific video that will give you an idea of just how far off the ground you’ll be if you ever decide to give it a shot.

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Ever wished you could go back in time to tell your younger self not to something particularly embarrassing? Or what if you witnessed someone’s older self return from the future to prevent a fatal incident? That’s what four sets of twins tried to pull off recently as part of a prank conducted by a comedy improv troupe down in New York City’s subway system.

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The prank comes from Improv Everywhere, an improv group that does all sorts of similar public improvisations, including one prank where they all rid on the subway without wearing any pants.

“For our latest mission, we staged an elaborate time travel prank on a New York City subway car with four sets of identical twins,” Improv Everywhere explains. “A man enters a subway car and announces he is raising money to complete his time machine. At the next stop, his future self enters to try to talk him out of it. More and more time travelers convene on the subway car as the train rolls along, surprising the random commuters caught up in the middle.”

What happens next? You’ll have to check out the video below to see how the twins performed in this complex time travel prank.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1Gq7Q3B9xU

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You might not be ready to buy a single-port, ultra-slim 12-inch Retina MacBook, but Apple’s thinnest laptop yet is an interesting option. The impressively slim design is already being copied by various rivals, and new reports suggest Apple will now release two new models of its sleek notebook.

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Some fans may have hoped to hear about Apple’s Retina MacBook plans during yesterday’s iPhone SE keynote, maybe as a “one more thing” sort of announcement. But that didn’t happen. However, reports out of Asia suggest Apple is indeed working on these new devices, and they’ll soon be available in two new sizes.

According to supply chain sources talking to Digitimes, Apple is preparing ultra-thin 13- and 15-inch Retina MacBook models that will have a similar design to the existing 12-inch MacBook, and they’ll be even thinner than Apple’s earlier notebook models.

The new MacBook models will reportedly ship in the second quarter of the year, though actual release date and pricing details aren’t available at this time.

Digitimes also adds that Apple’s ultra-thin MacBooks should help Apple enjoy growth in its notebook business, even though global laptop demand is still weak.

Apple’s rivals are also looking to bank on the success of ultra-thin laptops and several of them are preparing new notebooks to take on the 12-inch and future MacBook models. Digitimes notes that Asus, Dell and Lenovo all plan to release new models in the second quarter as well, to compete directly against the upcoming MacBooks and continue the trend.

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NASA has released an incredible Mars gravity map, based on data collected from three spacecraft.

“Gravity maps allow us to see inside a planet, just as a doctor uses an X-ray to see inside a patient,” said Antonio Genova of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a statement released by NASA. “The new gravity map will be helpful for future Mars exploration, because better knowledge of the planet’s gravity anomalies helps mission controllers insert spacecraft more precisely into orbit about Mars.”

Genova, who is based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is lead author of a paper on the Mars Gravity research published in the Journal Icarus. “The improved resolution of our gravity map will help us understand the still-mysterious formation of specific regions of the planet,” he added, in the NASA statement.

Related: Buzz Aldrin eyes 2040 for manned Mars mission

The map was created from data collected by NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. “Like all planets, Mars is lumpy, which causes the gravitational pull felt by spacecraft in orbit around it to change,” explained NASA, in its statement. “For example, the pull will be a bit stronger over a mountain, and slightly weaker over a canyon.”

The space agency said that the resolution of the new gravity map could offer a new explanation for how some features formed across the boundary that divides the red planet’s relatively smooth northern lowlands from heavily cratered southern highlands. Scientists also confirmed that Mars has a liquid outer core of molten rock by analyzing tides in the Martian crust and mantle caused by the gravitational pull of the sun and the two moons of Mars.

Mars looms ever larger in NASA’s future. The space agency recently announced a May 2018 launch for its delayed Mars Insight mission to study the red planet. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter celebrated 10 years at the red planet on March 10.

Related: Chaotic comet flyby blew away some of Mars’ atmosphere

Other space agencies are also eyeing Mars. The first mission of the joint European-Russian ExoMars program, for example, blasted off for the red planet earlier this month.

NASA’s goal is to send a manned mission to Mars by 2035.

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