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Facebook algorithm will learn new slang before you do

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Wonder how Facebook users will react to this new software.
Wonder how Facebook users will react to this new software.
Photo: Leander Kahney/Cult of Mac

Spend some time around any teenager and you’ll probably hear some new slang that you don’t understand. If you do get it, and you’re not a teenager or young adult yourself, chances are it’s already gone the way of the dodo in the minds and twisted hearts of said youngsters.

Facebook is hoping to combat this with a new software patent that would detect and gather new lingo as it appears on the social network, making it available to everyone.

As if we needed one more reason to feel old.

iPhone may get even bigger in 2017 with 5.8-inch OLED screen

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Does iPhone really need to get bigger?
Does the iPhone really need to get bigger?
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

If the iPhone 6s Plus seems just a little bit too small in your monstrous hands, fret not dear giant friends: Apple may be planning to go even bigger with a super-sized iPhone 7s Pro.

Apple is looking to add a 5.8-inch OLED display to the iPhone in 2017 or 2018, according to a new rumor that claims Samsung is already on board to supply the screens.

ExxonMobil finally brings Apple Pay to the gas pump

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Apple Pay iPhone
Paying at the pump is about to get a lot easier.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Filling up your car with gasoline is about to get a lot quicker, now that the world’s biggest oil company is finally adding Apple Pay to its pumps.

Starting today, ExxonMobil is activating Apple Pay at more than 6,000 gas stations across the U.S., allowing customers to buy gas or a car wash without having to bust out their wallets.

Steve Jobs movie finally gets some love

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Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs.
Another shot at glory?
Photo: François Duhamel/© 2015 Universal Studios

Aaron Sorkin and Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs movie bombed hard at the box office and failed to win anything at the Oscars, but the MTV Movie Awards are apparently a bit kinder than the Academy and the movie-going public. The Jobs semi-biopic just got nominated for the movie awards show’s Best True Story prize.

Kind of ironic, given Steve Jobs’ myriad inaccuracies, don’t you think?

Hillary Clinton weighs in on Apple’s FBI standoff. Kind of.

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iPhone 6 Plus_8
Clinton had no-so strong words for followers of the current privacy debate.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Other than a lasting love of Wall Street, Hillary Clinton’s poll-driven opinions on hot-button issues change as often as most people change their underwear.

But saying whatever the popular opinion is poses a problem when, as with Apple’s current privacy vs. “national security” standoff with the government, people voters are undecided on the issue. What do you do when someone asks you about it on the campaign trail, then?

If you’re the possible future POTUS, you take the bull by the horns and, well, offer an opinion that’s about as inoffensively middle-of-the-road as a Coldplay song in a wallpaper commercial.

Justice Department hopes to overturn Apple’s privacy win in New York

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iPhone mobile encryption touch id
The government would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for those meddling iKids.
Photo: Olly Browning/Pixabay

The U.S. Justice Department is seeking to overturn a ruling protecting Apple from unlocking the iPhone at the center of a New York drug case. The recent ruling from a New York magistrate judge stated that the government can’t compel Apple to unlock an iPhone involved in a criminal investigation, using the All Writs Act.

So the decision must have been wrong, of course!

Tim Cook involved in secret meeting to stump Donald Trump

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This story is going to be a Hollywood movie in 20 years, isn't it?
Photo: Michael Vadon/Flickr CC

Donald Trump doesn’t seem to like Apple much, and apparently the feeling is mutual. A new report claims Tim Cook joined an exclusive group of billionaires, tech CEOs and politicians who flew to a private island resort over the weekend to talk about how best to stump Trump.

Am I the only one who thinks this sounds like the opening of a Tom Clancy thriller?

Woz takes up ‘Innovator in Residence’ post at High Point University

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InnovatorInResidence_Outlines
Apple's co-founder has a new role.
Photo: High Point University

Compared to his Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak has always seemed more of a bumbling academic type: the sort who would much rather be getting his fingers dirty in research labs than flying in a shiny Gulfstream jet to negotiate new iTunes terms with a music label.

Which is why Woz would appear to be a perfect fit for his newly-announced role as North Carolina-based private liberal art college High Point University’s latest “Innovator in Residence.”

What’s the betting that theses dedicated to why the Apple II was the best computer ever suddenly get a major boost in numbers?

Square payments reach Australia without Apple Pay

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Square personal payment
Square's point-of-sale system is headed to Australia, but Apple Pay is a didgeri-don't.
Photo: Square

Australian small-business owners can now avail themselves of Square’s personal-payment system, which should make their lives slightly easier. And they could use all the help they can get considering they live in a country whose ecosystem was apparently designed by a comic-book supervillain. But vendors who have been looking for a way to accept credit cards can now breathe a little easier — once they’ve checked their shoes for deadly, deadly spiders.

A notable omission, however, is that Square’s restricting its offerings in that country to the older reader, which only accepts magstripes and chip cards. So unfortunately, our friends down there will have to wait a little longer for Apple Pay.

Robotic assistant makes you glad Siri is just a voice

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Nadine robotic assistant
Robotic assistant Nadine has the kind of face we can imagine only half-covering a soulless, plastic endoskeleton after the explosion failed to kill her.
Photo: Nanyang Technical University

Anyone who’s been wringing their hands in anticipation of the day we’ll each have a physical, robotic assistant to schedule our days and keep us company should be careful what they wish for because the future is here, and it is creepy.

“Nadine” comes from scientists at Nanyang Technical University in Singapore, and its face looks very similar to its creator’s, Professor Nadia Thalmann. But its terrifying, pruny hands come from somewhere else, like the nightmares we had when we were eight and watched director David Cronenberg’s version of The Fly even though our parents specifically told us not to.

You can see Nadine in action in the video below.

Use a mouse on iPad without jailbreaking

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Add a mouse (and other peripherals) to your iPad or iPhone.
Add a mouse (and other peripherals) to your iPad or iPhone.
Photo: DoBox

The development team at DoBox wants to make your iPad even more useful. This wireless box will let you connect a mouse, a wired keyboard, or even a printer to your iOS device (or Mac) and let you turn your iPad into even more of a productivity workhorse.

Check out the video below.

Close up with Apple’s new spaceship campus Theatre

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The roof to Apple's theater looks like a UFO.
The roof to Apple's theater looks like a UFO.
Photo: Apple

Starting in 2017, all of Apple’s keynotes will be held in an amazing new theater in the heart of the spaceship campus, but you don’t have to wait until next year to see what it will look like.

Apple has given curious minds an early look at the 120,000-square-foot subterranean auditorium it has dubbed ‘The Theatre’. Once completed the venue will have a capacity of 1,000 seats below what the company believes is the world’s largest freestanding carbon-fiber roof ever made.

Apple seeds new betas for iOS, tvOS, watchOS, and OS X

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iOS 9.3 beta 6 is here!
iOS 9.3 beta 6 is here!
Photo: Apple

Less than a week after dropping a big batch of new software on developers and public testers, Apple is back with a sixth beta build of iOS 9.3 as well as new betas for watchOS, tvOS, and OS X El Capitan.

The software updates bring a host of new features to developers and public testers the iPhone like NightShift mode, folders on Apple TV, multiple Apple Watch pairings on one iPhone, improved Apple News and Apple Music apps, and some great education features for iPad.

Here’s a preview of some of the new goodies:

Apple forced to pay $450 million after Supreme Court rejects e-book appeal

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Apple's eBook appeal is just getting started. Photo: Apple
Apple's e-book legal battle is finally over.
Photo: Apple

Apple’s nearly three year legal battle over charges that it conspired with publishers to raise the price of e-books is finally coming to end.

This morning the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Apple’s appeal, which leaves the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in place. Apple will finally have to pay $450 million as part of the settlement.

NYPD chief: iOS is a gift to ‘kidnappers, robbers and murderers’

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iPhone mobile encryption touch id
Public enemy no. 1?
Photo: Olly Browning/Pixabay

Making it sound like the 2016 version of a souped-up getaway car, NYPD counter-terrorism chief John Miller described iOS as the perfect tool for “kidnappers, robbers and murderers” in a recent interview — all due to its uncrackable privacy policy.

“You are actually providing aid to [felons] who have actually been recorded on the telephones in Riker’s Island telling their compatriots on the outside, ‘You gotta get iOS 8. It’s a gift from God,’ — and that’s a quote — ‘because the cops can’t crack it,’” he said — referring to Apple’s current privacy standoff with the FBI.

Smartphone fingerprint scanners fooled by inkjet printer

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smartphone-fingerprint-scanners-fooled-by-inkjet-printer-image-cultofandroidcomwp-contentuploads201603inkjet-fingerprints-png
It’s as easy as that!
Photo: Michigan State University
inkjet fingerprint
It’s as easy as that! Photo: Michigan State University

Your fingerprint is supposed to be the most secure method of locking your smartphone, but that’s not the case if your device can be easily fooled. Researchers have been able to hack those from Samsung and Huawei using only an inkjet printer and conductive ink.

Not groovy: iPhone users receive undeletable emails from 1970

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disco
Received any emails from the '70s lately?
Photo: Ste Smith

A strange iOS glitch has some iPhone and iPad users complaining after they received undeletable emails dated January 1, 1970.

The emails in question are blank, with no subject or content — which means that sadly we’re not in line for scalper messages about tickets to the farewell concert of Diana Ross and The Supremes (which took place that month), or reminders about meetings we’re very, very late to.

FBI’s iPhone backdoor could cause companies to flee U.S.

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iPhone hack
There are plenty of ways the FBI's demands hurt the U.S.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

There’s no shortage of possible repercussions to Apple’s current standoff with the FBI, regarding whether or not the company should create a backdoor to help unlock iPhones involved with potential terrorist or criminal cases.

But while Apple (and others) have argued that this represents a damaging blow against privacy, a recently-filed amacus brief in support of Apple by former secure technology company Lavabit has a more direct example of how the FBI’s demands may hurt America: by driving tech companies offshore to avoid having their reputations damaged.

iPhone 6s destroys brand new Galaxy S7 in speed test

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iphone-6s-destroys-brand-new-galaxy-s7-edge-in-speed-test-image-cultofandroidcomwp-contentuploads201602galaxy-s7-edge-leak-jpg
The S7 Edge shows that on-paper specs aren't everything!
Photo: Evan Blass
The S7 Edge shows that on-paper specs aren't everything! Photo: Evan Blass
The S7 Edge shows that on-paper specs aren’t everything! Photo: Evan Blass

Samsung’s new Galaxy S7 edge isn’t officially out until later this week, but according to some early out-of-the-box speed test comparisons it’s doesn’t fare too well against the six-month-old iPhone 6s Plus — despite having twice the RAM of Apple’s 2GB handset.

Check out the video below:

Craig Federighi on why FBI’s backdoor demands are so harmful

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Hair Force One wants everyone to become a coder.
Cray-Fed says the FBI wants us to return to a world of iOS 7-level security.
Photo: Apple

Apple’s battle with the FBI, over whether it should create a backdoor to allow for the hacking of iPhones, is one of the biggest stories in tech right now.

Over the weekend, Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, took to the pages of the Washington Post for an impassioned op-ed about how hard Apple works to stay ahead of criminals and terrorists who want to infiltrate its systems — and why the FBI and Justice Department’s proposed solution to the problem is so “disappointing.”

Stealthy malware will hold your Mac ransom

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Apple takes a hacksaw to estimated trade-in values for its devices
A rare security threat aimed at Mac users.
Photo: Pictures of Money/Flickr CC

Torrenters beware! The first ransomware attack on Mac users in the wild has been discovered, “courtesy” of Transmission, a BitTorrent client for Mac.

The torrent service received a major update last week, but it unfortunately the new software happened to be infected with ransomware, which went on to quietly install itself on the the Macs of everyone who downloaded the update from Transmission’s website.

Hound, Thumb Drift, and other awesome apps of the week

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appsoftheweek_1024
Have an 'appy weekend all!
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

If you’re looking to unwind this fine Sunday by sampling the latest App Store delectables for your iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch, look no further: Cult of Mac has your hookup!

Whether you’re on the hunt for a fun racing game, a new and surprisingly great alternative to Siri, or a promising photo and video-editing app created by a 16-year-old dev, we’ve got what you’re searching for.

Check out our picks below. You won’t be disappointed.

Rumors of a super-slim iPhone 7 plus our list of most-wanted features on The CultCast

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Sneeze and it's gone: iPhone 7 may be super-duper thin.
Sneeze and it's gone: iPhone 7 may be super-duper thin.
Concept designs by: Yasser Farahi

This week on The CultCast: Rumors point to an insanely thin iPhone 7, but what about battery life? Plus: Our list of most-wanted iPhone 7 features; why only some of us are excited for iPhone SE; why the new iPad may have a killer new camera; and if you want to hear Leander complain about Mariah Carey and Maroon 5, stay tuned for Leander Loves Pop!

Thinner iPhones, Mac malware and 10 mobile Safari tips you need to know

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Thin is in, baby.
Thin is in, baby.
Cover Design: Stephen Smith/Cult of Mac

With Bendgate not that far behind us, is it really wise for Apple to contemplate an even thinner iPhone?

Sure, it’s an easy selling point for new iPhones, but thinner can also mean more bendable. Take a look at this age-old Apple theme in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine, along with 10 fantastically useful mobile Safari tips, a way to find out if you’ve been infected by sneaky adware, five amazingly great new iOS games, and some awesome product reviews to help inform your purchasing plans.

All this, and much much more, in Cult of Mac Magazine, free for your perusal right now.

Here are the top stories of the week: