Techmeme
October 13, 2016, 11:25 AM

Top News

Steve Dent / Engadget:
Samsung offers $100 credit to exchange Galaxy Note7 for another Samsung phone, $25 for other brands; expands recall to include original and replacement devices  —  In an attempt to keep users, Samsung is issuing a $100 credit to exchange the defective Galaxy Note 7 for a Galaxy S7 Edge or other Samsung device.
Jason Koebler / Motherboard:
Samsung says it won't refurbish Note7s, choosing to “safely dispose” of them, which creates waste, loses rare earth elements, and could harm the environment  —  Lost in the hype about Samsung permanently pulling the plug on its exploding phone is this: The failure of the Galaxy Note 7 …
Sam Byford / The Verge:
Walt Mossberg / Recode:
Apple wasted its lead with Siri and now has an intelligent assistant that is too limited and unreliable to be an effective tool in coming AI wars  —  I've been familiar with Siri longer than most people.  Way back in 2009 — two years before Apple incorporated the intelligent digital assistant …
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google releases Sprayscape, an experimental 360-degree VR collage camera app for Android  —  With Android Experiments, Google is giving itself the freedom to experiment with quirky little apps that show off some interesting technologies but don't really have any other real purpose.
Peter Bright / Ars Technica:
HP refreshes Spectre x360 with Intel's Kaby Lake processors, a bigger battery, Thunderbolt 3, and Windows Hello support, available now for $1,050  —  HP's Kaby Lake refresh adds some great features to one of our favorite laptops.  —  We really liked HP's Spectre x360 Ultrabook when we reviewed its first Broadwell version last year.
Efe Kerem Sozeri / The Daily Dot:
How hacktivist group RedHack subverted the Turkish government's notorious censorship tactics in order to release a government email archive  —  The Turkish government blocked Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive and even Github to stop leaked emails of Energy Minister, Berat Albayrak …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Snap Inc. has chosen Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs as the lead bankers for its IPO, which is expected as soon as March 2017  —  Company's public market listing could happen as soon as March  —  JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, Allen & Co. also involved in offering
Scott Dadich / Wired:
Interview with Barack Obama and MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito on AI and its impact on society, medical research, self-driving cars, and more  —  IT'S HARD TO think of a single technology that will shape our world more in the next 50 years than artificial intelligence.
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
Verizon and Google say Verizon's Pixels will get OS updates and security patches at the same time as those sold by Google  —  Verizon apparently has turned over a new leaf and “won't stand in the way of updates.”  —  Update 2: Google agrees!  The company told Ars “OS updates …
Caitlin Dewey / Washington Post:
The Washington Post tracked Facebook's Trending Topics section over three weeks, uncovering five fake stories and three profoundly inaccurate ones  —  The Intersect ran a little experiment a few weeks ago: During the work day, we'd check in with Facebook each hour, on the hour …

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Niraj Chokshi / New York Times: