Everything we know about Apple's next big iPhone update, iOS 9

Next week, Apple will tell us about its next big update for the iPhone and iPad.

Every year at its Worldwide Developer Conference, the company reveals all of the new features its planning to bring to iOS in the fall.

Although Apple hasn't confirmed anything just yet, 9to5Mac's Mark Gurman has spoken to several people familiar with the company's plans for iOS 9. Here are the biggest additions we're expecting to see based on his reports. 

Click through to learn about what iOS 9 will be like »

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Obama just made a Big move to restore Americans' Trust in the Government

Yesterday the Senate passed and President Obama signed into law the USA Freedom Act, a piece of legislation meant to curb the government’s ability to conduct widespread surveillance.

Now that the dust has settled, both privacy advocates and tech insiders alike are breathing a sigh of relief.

The Freedom Act was built as an answer to the sunsetting clauses of the Patriot Act, which was signed into law right after 9/11, giving US authorities the seeming unfettered ability to surveil US civilians. The USA Freedom Act significantly reigns in the federal government's ability to spy on citizens, an issue that has been widely debated in the wake of the leaked documents revealed NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Overall, the Freedom Act’s passing was met with praise from those in tech and beyond.  

The American Library Association’s executive director Emily Sheketoff wrote in a statement to Business Insider that the bill’s passage was "a milestone," going on to explain that it’s the "first meaningful reform of our surveillance law in almost 15 years.”

Similarly, the Mozilla Corporation’s senior vice president of business and legal affairs Denelle Dixon-Thayer described it as "a significant first step to restore trust online, and a foundation for further needed reform."

The general consensus is: This is good, but just the beginning. While celebration appears to be widespread, it’s still an imperfect bill. 

The Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote in a blog post yesterday:

 In the wake of the damning evidence of surveillance abuses disclosed by Edward Snowden, Congress had an opportunity to champion comprehensive surveillance reform and undertake a thorough investigation, like it did with the Church Committee. Congress could have tried to completely end mass surveillance and taken numerous other steps to rein in the NSA and FBI. This bill was the result of compromise and strong leadership by Sens. Patrick Leahy and Mike Lee and Reps. Robert Goodlatte, Jim Sensenbrenner, and John Conyers.

Despite this, the ardent coalition of privacy defenders concluded that this was a moment of celebration. "We fought hard to get to this moment in history," they wrote in the blog post.

Mozilla, in a conversation with Business Insider, confirmed these sentiments. "[The USA Freedom Act] is certainly not perfect," Chris Riley, Mozilla’s head of public policy told Business Insider a few weeks ago. "It’s not comprehensive… [but] it’s a very significant positive step going forward."

Players like Mozilla and the EFF have been working fervently to pass bills defending digital civil liberties for years now. Both have gone to Washington to lobby support for bills like the Freedom Act. And both have been working to end the government's huge surveillance program that came to light thanks to the Edward Snowden leaks.

Even though the Freedom Act fixes some of these issues but not all of them, tech and privacy advocates alike see this then as a trepidatious day of victory. In many ways, it marks a moment when politicians and citizens have woken up to the huge issue that is digital privacy.

President Obama, too, sees this as a pivotal moment in legislative history:

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The 10 Most Incredible Weapon Systems Used By The Russian Army

Russian Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft missile system.

At a cost of $70 billion a year, Russia has the world's third-largest defence budget. For that, the state boasts 845,000 troops, 22,550 tanks, and 1,399 combat aircraft.

Though the country is perhaps not considered the superpower it once was, Russia's armed forces have gone through a significant transformation since President Vladimir Putin's re-election in 2012. The army is being split into smaller, more dynamic brigades. The focus is on new technologies rather than brute manpower. (For instance, this Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft system is basically a tank with a load of extra cannons sticking out of it.)

Here's a review of some of Russia's more menacing military machines.

Bora-class guided-missile hovercraft: This ship is actually a catamaran with a skirt that turns it into a hovercraft. Armed with eight Mosquito missiles and 20 anti-aircraft missiles, the ship has a crew of up to 68 sailors and a cruising speed of 100km per hour.

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The Pantsir-S1: A combined short-to-medium range surface-to-air missile and anti-aircraft missile system. The system consists of 12 surface-to-air guided missiles and two 30-mm automatic guns effective against planes, helicopters, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles.

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A virtually invisible submarine: The first of six diesel-electric stealth submarines, the Novorossiysk was launched from a St. Petersburg shipyard last year. Its designers say its stealth technology makes it virtually undetectable when submerged.

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The Mig-35 multirole jet fighter: Effective both in air-to-air combat and precision ground strikes. Capable of reaching speeds of up to 2,400 km per hour despite being 30% larger than its predecessor, the Mig-35 is able both to dogfight and destroy sea and surface targets from long range, as well as conduct air reconnaissance missions.

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The BUK-2 missile system: This is the battery that allegedly brought down a Malaysian airliner over Ukraine in 2014. Its 9M317 missiles can reach 46,000 feet at Mach 3, carrying 154-pound warheads.

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The RS-24 Yars: A thermonuclear intercontinental ballistic missile system that can carry multiple independently targetable nuclear warheads with a range of 10,000 miles. Designed to replace Topol-M ballistic missiles, it has been operationally deployed since 2010. Each missile has the power of 100 "Little Boys" — the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945.

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"The Russian Concorde": The Tupolev Tu-160 is the world's largest supersonic combat aircraft. It was designed by the Soviet Union in the 1980s. It boasts the most powerful engines ever on a combat aircraft and can hold 40,000kg of weaponry. There are 16 in service.

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The T-90: The most advanced battle tank used by the Russian armed forces. Its main weapon is a 125mm smoothbore gun with anti-tank capabilities, but it also boasts a remote-controlled anti-aircraft heavy machine gun.

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At 14,700 tonnes, Borei-class nuclear ballistic missile submarines are slightly smaller than their predecessors, the massive Typhoon-class. But with a capacity of 16 Bulava ballistic missiles, each carrying six to 10 warheads with a range of 8,300km, they are still a force to be reckoned with.

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The Russian Mi-28 Havoc attack helicopter: This is the go-to attack helicopter for the Russian air force and army. Its basic armament is a 30mm Shipunov underslung auto-cannon and wingstubs that can carry up to four anti-tank missiles, rocket pods, or gun pods.

The 8 Most Elite Special Forces in the World

Elite special forces are some of the best-trained and most formidable units a country can boast.

They go where other soldiers fear to tread, scoping out potential threats, taking out strategic targets, and conducting daring rescue missions.

These really are the best of the best.

Although it's extremely difficult to rank these forces relative to one another, there are some units that rise above the rest in their track record and the fear they instill in their adversaries. These soldiers have been through rigorous training exercises designed to weed out those who can't hit their exacting standards.

In a world where the importance of the sheer size of a country's military forces is no longer a guide to their effectiveness, these soldiers are the ones states look to in order to get the job done.

8. The Special Services Group, SSG, in Pakistan is better known in the country as the "Black Storks" because of the commandos' unique headgear. Training reportedly includes a 36-mile march in 12 hours and a five-mile run in 50 minutes in full gear.

REUTERS/Mian Khursheed

In October 2009, SSG commandos stormed an office building and rescued 39 people taken hostage by suspected Taliban militants after an attack on the army's headquarters.

REUTERS/Faisal Mahmood

7. Spain's Unidad de Operaciones Especiales, or the Naval Special Warfare Force as it has become since 2009, has long been one of Europe's best-respected special forces. Originally established as the volunteer Amphibious Climbing Company unit in 1952, it has since followed the SAS's example to become an elite fighting force.

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Earning the UOE green beret, however, is a big ask with the failure rate of candidates averaging between 70% and 80%. It's not uncommon for 100% of would-be new recruits to be rejected.

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6. Russia's Alpha Group is one of the best-known special forces units in the world. This elite antiterrorism unit was created by the KGB in 1974 and remains under its modern-day counterpart, the FSB.

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Russian special forces, and the Alpha Group in particular, came under criticism during the 2002 Moscow hostage crisis in which 129 hostages died from the effects of the gas used to knock out militants who had seized a theatre.

REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

5. Of all the counterterrorism forces in the world, few can compete with France's National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN). The group is 200 strong and trained specifically to respond to hostage situations. They claim to have freed over 600 people since they were formed in 1973. It is against French law to publish pictures of their faces.

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One of the most extraordinary episodes in the GIGN's history was the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979. Because of the prohibition on non-Muslims entering the holy city, a team of three GIGN commandos briefly converted to Islam before helping the Saudi armed forces to plan the recapture of the mosque.

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4. Israel's Sayeret Matkal is another of the world's most elite units. Its primary purpose is intelligence gathering, and it often operates deep behind enemy lines. During the selection camp (Gibbush), would-be recruits endure hardcore training exercises while being constantly monitored by doctors and psychologists. Only the strongest get in.

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In 2003, Israeli taxi driver Eliyahu Gurel was kidnapped after transporting four Palestinians to Jerusalem in his cab. But the Sayeret Matkal unit located and rescued him from a 10-meter-deep pit in an abandoned factory in a suburb of Ramallah.

Yoav Gutterman/IDF/Getty Images

3. The British Special Air Service (or SAS as they are more commonly known) are the infantry counterparts to the SBS. Their insignia bears the famous phrase "Who dares wins." Asked about the importance of the SAS's role in the fighting that followed the Iraq war, US Gen. Stanley McChrystal responded: "Essential. Could not have done it without them."

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2. The UK equivalent of the Navy SEALS is the Special Boat Service. The selection process involves a grueling endurance test, jungle training in the rainforests of Belize, and combat survival training, which involves intense interrogation of candidates. And you get only two attempts to pass.

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1. The US Navy SEALS might one-up even the Marines. To join their ranks, you have to be able to do a minimum of 42 push-ups in two minutes, 50 sit-ups in two minutes, and run 1.5 miles in 11 minutes. And that's before training starts.

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BONUS: The US Marines are hardcore in their own right. Below, a US Marine drinks the blood of a cobra during a jungle survival exercise with the Thai Navy as part of the "Cobra Gold 2014" joint military exercise.

Apple publishes recovery instructions for bug that crashes iOS devices

iMessage issue solved by asking Siri to read and reply to unread messages – but it’s only a temporary fix in advance of full software update

Hey Siri, can you help me get access to my texts again after that strange message I received consisting of non-Latin characters crashed my iPhone? In advance of a software update to fix the bug, yes it can.

Apple has published a temporary workaround for iOS users affected by the bug, which was found to affect iPhones earlier in the week, and subsequently revealed to be capable of affecting the Apple Watch, iPads and Macs.

In a new article published on its support website, Apple outlined a three-step process, enabling people to open their Messages app again:

1. Ask Siri to “read unread messages”.
2. Use Siri to reply to the malicious message. After you reply, you’ll be able to open Messages again.
3. In Messages, swipe left to delete the entire thread. Or tap and hold the malicious message, tap More, and delete the message from the thread.

The booby-trapped text message presented characters – including those from Arabic, Chinese and Marathi – in a specific sequence that choked Apple’s CoreText system, crashing the recipient’s device and leaving them unable to access their messages.

Pranksters seized upon the message to crash friends’ iPhones, but security experts have warned that this kind of bug has the potential to be used for more malicious purposes in the future.

“Programming errors in Unicode decoding and rendering will produce more errors like this, some of which may be exploitable to access elevated privilege levels on devices,” said Ken Simpson, chief executive of email security company MailChannels – although he noted that such an exploit had not yet been developed.

SMS exploits are not a new trend, however. In 2009, two cybersecurity researchers uncovered loopholes that enabled them to hack in to iPhones by sending a series of text messages, with Apple patching the vulnerability that July.

Apple plans to fix the current messaging bug without the need for Siri soon. “Apple is aware of an iMessage issue caused by a specific series of unicode characters and we will make a fix available in a software update,” explained its support page.

Instagram is going to start showing you ads based on information in your Facebook profile

Instagram ads are about to get a lot more personal.

For the last year and a half, you've probably seen an occasional ad in your Instagram feed from brands like Lululemon and Budweiser. Usually they look like something you'd normally see on Instagram anyway, like a hipster couple enjoying a drink on the beach. 

But soon advertisers will know if you're a 20-something living in Brooklyn who likes cats. How? Your Facebook profile.

On Tuesday, the photo sharing service, which Facebook bought in 2012 for $1 billion, announced that by this winter, it will begin to use data from your Facebook profile to target you with more relevant ads.

Instagram ads can currently only target users based on age, gender, and country.

Instagram also said it's going to let businesses "of all sizes" start displaying ads, a move to help make money off of its 300 million monthly users.

"To give all businesses the opportunity to reach the right people, we are working to make Instagram advertising available through an Instagram Ads API and Facebook ad buying interfaces over the coming months," said the company in a blog post.

So will you start seeing more ads in your Instagram feed? Not necessarily. "People may see more ads in the future, but they'll be much more relevant and targeted," an Instagram spokesperson told Business Insider.

Right now only big brands with direct relationships to Instagram sell ads on the platform. Starting in July, Instagram plans to let select marketing partners work on ads for more brands. By the winter, Instagram's buying tools will be integrated with Facebook's, allowing any brand that advertises on Facebook to buy ads on on Instagram, too.

That means you'll start seeing Instagram ads tailored to your Facebook profile and habits.

Earlier this year, select brands were given the ability to show slideshows with multiple photos for ads along with clickable links. Now companies that buy ads will be able to direct users to check out their stuff with custom "Shop now" buttons, that when tapped, will open an in-app browser where they can shop without leaving the Instagram app.

An Instagram spokesperson said that clickable links are only for advertisers and won't be available to regular users in their photo captions or comments. 

Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom said at last year's Code Conference that he still personally approves every ad that runs in the app. In the future, ads will be curated more algorithmically based on Instagram's guidelines.

10 Things Men Find Unattractive

Women love gossip. They notice the smallest things that men do wrong and then discuss them with their girlfriends. What about men? Do they notice ladies’ mistakes?

Does an average guy whose occupation has nothing to do with fashion really understand anything about women’s outfit, perfume, or makeup? Some do. And here are 10 things they find unattractive:

1. Intricate Hairstyle
An intricate hairstyle is alright for a carnival or an extravagant photo session in a studio. In all other situations natural-looking hair is preferred. It’s far more pleasant to see and touch hair that is free of styling gels, sticky hair sprays and other hair products.

2. Heavy Foundation
Foundation is created to hide fine lines, blemishes and little flaws. It makes your skin look healthy and smooth. It can even out your complexion and improve your skin tone. If it is visible, then you do not apply it right. Foundation is supposed to be invisible to others and even you. Thoroughly blend it with your skin – that’s the only way to avoid the mask effect.

3. Glitter and Shimmer on Your Eyelids
If you are not a professional makeup artist, it’ll better if you avoid using glittery and shimmery eye shadow. Very few succeed in applying it anyways. Matte shadow is always better because it does not cling to the eye crease.

4. Gummed up Lashes
This is what usually happens when you apply too much mascara. It clumps and does not make your eyes look sexy and tempting at all. Use mascara of good quality. Experiment with several brands and pick the best one for you – the one that does not smudge under your eyes or rub off after a couple of hours. Finally, use a special brush to comb your lashes and remove the clumps.

5. Badly Shaved Body
Whether you like it or not, men prefer smooth skin. Take care of your entire body. Make sure that your legs and armpits are perfectly clean and hairless. Such things play even a greater role than makeup. It tells a lot about your hygiene and there is no point in applying makeup if the rest of your body is not totally neat!

6. Dry Skin
It’s unpleasant to touch dry skin. Scurfy elbows or heels look awful. Use moisturizing and nourishing shower gels, creams and body lotions after shower.

7. Bad Breath and Yellowish Teeth
Yellowish teeth and bad breath will never attract the opposite sex. Think of the reason what causes the problem. Are you a smoker? Or is it just your poor hygiene? Maybe you drink too much coffee, black tea, or red wine? In either case, do your best to solve the problem as soon as possible. Use whitening toothpaste or strips to make your smile brighter and carry breath dragees in your handbag.

8. Wrong Lip Liner
If you have been invited on a date, probably you will also be taken to a cafe or a restaurant. Think ahead about how your lips will look after you have eaten your dinner. If you use lipstick and lip liner, then after eating food out of the two only lip liner will stay on your lips. You will probably agree that this won’t look attractive at all. It’s even worse if your lip liner is much darker than your lipstick or your natural lip color. Such a contrast is totally inacceptable. Let your lip products be as close to your natural lip shade as possible!

9. Too Much Fragrance
Perfume is created to help you express your individuality. But too much of a good thing is never right. A drop of your favorite aroma is enough to make a man pay attention to you. Make your aroma your little secret. That’s the best way to keep a man wondering and imagining a lot of beautiful things about your personality.

10. Public Grooming
Trust us, men do not want to know or see how you make yourself attractive. This ruins their illusion. Let them think you are effortlessly beautiful. All major makeup procedures should be performed at home, not in public.