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FBI enlists mobile forensic firm to crack terrorist’s iPhone

Today is Wednesday March 23nd and it’s the first of two media-only days at the New York International Auto Show. Car makers are taking the wraps off of a number of brand new rides, and our favorite so far is the 2017 Nissan GT-R, otherwise known as Godzilla. This year’s redesign gives the Takumi powered sports car a boost of 20 horsepower bring it up to 565, and it gets an all new titanium exhaust. But the upgrades aren’t just performance based. Nissan’s made the cabin more luxurious with Nappa leather, a larger touchscreen, and active noise cancellation to make the ride quieter than before. Unfortunately, they’ve also added Active Sound Enhancement, which plays fake engine noises through the sound system. The 2017 GT-R will go on sale this summer.

Just a quick update on the Apple vs FBI saga. From a report by Reuters this morning, the FBI is working with a company called Cellebrite to unlock the iPhone 5c of one of the San Bernadino shooters. According to its website, Cellebrite provides mobile forensic software and specializes in unlocking mobile data sources for investigations.  While details of what they are actually doing are secret, it’s widely speculated that Cellebrite is using NAND mirroring to prevent the phone from counting the number of failed pass code attempts. The FBI needs to update the Federal court by April 5th on if it plans to reinstate the request to Apple to unlock the phone. Whether or not that happens should give us an idea of if Cellebrite hacked the iPhone.

Finally, two of our favorite topics… not sure which order to put them in… VR and porn. Today Pornhub launched a free VR channel (NSFW) for users of mobile devices, Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR, and apparently the Oculus Rift. This is obviously not suitable for viewing at work… but hey, who’s going to know what you’re really watching in those VR goggles anyway. Just keep the sound down. One of our testers tried this out and reports that it’s, quote “kinda strange” and a bit blurry. Just wait until the creepy guy on the bus sits down next to you wearing a VR headset, you’ll have no idea what he’s watching.

That’s it for DT Daily today, check in often for more updates from the New York auto show, like us on Facebook, and we’ll see you again tomorrow.

Greg Nibler
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Greg has worked as a Host, Producer, and Writer in radio and television since the early 2000s, working for such companies as…
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