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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 75 declined, 19 accepted (94 total, 20.21% accepted)

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Submission + - Family sues Amazon after counterfeit hoverboard catches fire, destroys home (usatoday.com)

tripleevenfall writes: A Nashville family whose $1 million home was destroyed earlier this year in a fire caused by a hoverboard toy is suing Amazon saying the retail giant knowingly sold a dangerous product.

The lawsuit says the seller of the hoverboard listed online, "W-Deals," is a sham organization that is registered to an apartment in New York City that has not responded to requests from lawyers in the case. It alleges the family was sold a counterfeit product from China instead of a brand with a Samsung lithium ion battery they believed they were buying from Amazon.

Submission + - Samsung stops production of Galaxy Note 7 (cnet.com)

tripleevenfall writes: Samsung reportedly has halted production of its large screen phone following news of overheating issues in its replacement devices, according to South Korean publications such as Yonhap News Agency. An anonymous Samsung official told Yonhap that the halt was done in cooperation with safety regulators from South Korea, China and the United States.

Over the past week, there have been a handful of reports of overheating in replacement devices. One caused the evacuation of a Southwest Airlines flight; another hurt a teenage girl. What's likely up for Samsung next is a rare, second recall of the Note 7.

Submission + - Replacement Galaxy Note 7 caused airplane evacuation (kansascity.com)

tripleevenfall writes: Southwest Airlines said a Samsung Electronics smartphone caused smoke that forced the evacuation of a plane waiting to depart from Louisville, Kentucky, almost three weeks after U.S. safety regulators started an official recall of the Galaxy Note 7. Lori Crabtree, a spokeswoman for the airline, said in an emailed statement. "A customer reported smoke emitting from an electronic device."

The phone involved was a replacement Galaxy Note 7, owner Brian Green told The Verge, a technology news-focused website. Green said he picked up the phone at an AT&T Inc. store on Sept. 21, and showed The Verge a photograph of the box that displayed a black square symbol indicating a replacement phone.

Submission + - Theranos to shut down blood testing; cut work force by 40% (wsj.com)

tripleevenfall writes: Theranos Inc. said it will shut down its blood-testing facilities and shrink its workforce by more than 40%. The company said it had 790 full-time employees as of August 1.

The moves mark a dramatic retreat by the Palo Alto, Calif., company and founder Elizabeth Holmes from their core strategy of offering a long menu of low-price blood tests directly to consumers. Those ambitions already were endangered by crippling regulatory sanctions that followed revelations by The Wall Street Journal of shortcomings in Theranos’s technology and operations. Theranos later voided all results from its proprietary device for 2014 and 2015

Submission + - Galaxy Note 7 recall "on the table" following battery explosions (bgr.com)

tripleevenfall writes: Samsung earlier this week halted Galaxy Note 7 shipments in South Korea, in spite of the phone’s massive preorder sales success. In the meantime, brand new reports indicate that Samsung is considering a Galaxy Note 7 recall, at least in South Korea, and that battery worries are indeed real.

Quoting Chosun Ilbo, The Korea Herald says that Samsung planned to exchange batteries of all customers free of charge, but it’s now considering either a refund or a full phone replacement. This affects only the Korean market for now, where Samsung sold more than 400,000 units since August 19th. Samsung concluded that the faulty batteries are to blame for the explosions.

Submission + - Samsung investigates explosions involving Galaxy Note 7 phones (fox5ny.com)

tripleevenfall writes: Samsung has delayed shipments of Galaxy Note 7 smartphones in South Korea after reports that batteries in some of the jumbo smartphones exploded while they were being charged. Samsung said the delay affects only the South Korean market.

Company officials did not reply to questions about how Samsung determined which phones are deemed safe and which require further testing. South Korea's Yonhap News said five or six explosions were reported by consumers.

Submission + - Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 shipments delayed due to quality testing (reuters.com)

tripleevenfall writes: Tech giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said on Wednesday shipments of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone are being delayed as the firm conducts additional quality control testing for the premium device.

"Shipments of the Galaxy Note 7 are being delayed due to additional tests being conducted for product quality," Samsung said in a statement to Reuters. The firm did not elaborate on what it is testing and to what markets shipments are being delayed.

Local media reports have said some users of the Galaxy Note 7, which launched in South Korea and other markets earlier this month, have claimed that the battery for their phones exploded.

Quality control problems, if confirmed, could deal a major blow to the world's top smartphone maker as the firm is counting on the sales of the new device to maintain sales momentum for the mobile business in the second half of this year.

Submission + - Google reportedly dropping Nexus brand name; Moving away from stock Android (theverge.com)

tripleevenfall writes: Google’s newest smartphones won’t be Nexus devices after all. According to Android Central, Google is dropping the Nexus branding with its two upcoming, HTC-made smartphones. Instead, the company is expected to market the devices under a different name and to lean heavily on the Google brand in the process.

This shift is more than just symbolic. The report states Google will load the devices with a special version of Android Nougat, as opposed to the standard "vanilla" version of the operating system that’s shipped on past and current Nexus devices.

Submission + - Gawker to shut down next week, in wake of $140M Hulk Hogan judgment (startribune.com)

tripleevenfall writes: Gawker is going to shut down.

A Gawker report Thursday said that Nick Denton, Gawker's founder, told staffers that Gawker.com was ending on Thursday afternoon.

Univision, the Spanish-language broadcaster, is buying Gawker Media for $135 million in the aftermath of a $140 million judgment against it in the Hulk Hogan invasion-of-privacy case.

A bankruptcy court judge has to approve the sale at a hearing Thursday.

Gawker Media's other blogs include the women-focused Jezebel, tech-oriented Gizmodo and sports site Deadspin.

Submission + - Wikileaks emails (dailycaller.com)

tripleevenfall writes: Democratic National Committee documents recently released by WikiLeaks include spreadsheets and emails that appear to show party officials planning which donors and prominent fundraisers to provide with appointments to federal boards and commissions. The records, which WikiLeaks released along with nearly 20,000 hacked DNC emails and other documents on Friday, also expose one of the Beltway’s worst kept secrets: that wealthy politicos can often buy their way to presidential appointments.

Submission + - Will the second Prime Day live up to expectations? (startribune.com)

tripleevenfall writes: Tuesday, July 12 brings the second annual Amazon Prime Day. Last year Amazon promised deals better than Black Friday, but was blasted on social media for underwhelming savings on items that sold out in seconds.Amazon is promising better savings this year on more than 100,000 items throughout the day, nearly twice as many as last year.

Submission + - Watch a car thief steal a Jeep with only a laptop (cnet.com)

tripleevenfall writes: The below video from the Houston Police Department shows a man entering a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited. After a few minutes of fiddling with a laptop, the car disappears down the street. The whole job takes about 13 minutes.

The police are unclear as to what role the laptop played in the theft, according to the Wall Street Journal article that mentions this video. Fiat Chrysler gave the WSJ not much more than a boilerplate response about taking security seriously.

Submission + - Tesla confirms first death in Autopiloted Model S (nydailynews.com)

tripleevenfall writes: The first-ever fatality in an autonomous car occurred nearly two months ago when a Tesla Model S in "Autopilot" mode crashed into the side of a turning semi-truck on a Florida highway. The fatal accident, which happened on May 7 in Williston, Florida, was confirmed by U.S. regulators and the car company Thursday afternoon. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has launched a probe into the incident. According to a report from the Associated Press, the Autopiloted Model S crashed into the truck as it was making a left turn at the intersection of a divided highway. The truck crossed in front of the electric sports car and the Autopilot system failed to apply its brakes.

Submission + - Microsoft kills Windows 10's Messaging Everywhere texts, to bolster Skype (pcworld.com)

tripleevenfall writes: The ability to respond to text messages received on your phone with the same app on your PC. It’s a dream that’s been a reality for Mac users since 2014, and Windows 10 Mobile users were supposed to get the feature, called Messaging Everywhere, with the Anniversary Update rolling out August 2.

But that’s not happening anymore.

Instead, Microsoft thinks it has a better idea: add Messaging Everywhere to an upcoming version of Skype for Windows 10 PCs.

Submission + - Windows phone free-fall may force Microsoft to push harder on Windows 10 (pcworld.com)

tripleevenfall writes: Microsoft sold a minuscule 2.3 million Lumia phones last quarter, down from 8.6 million a year ago. Phone revenue declines will only “steepen” during the current quarter, chief financial officer Amy Hood warned during a conference call. That’s dragged down Microsoft’s results as a company, too. As the company's mobile device strategy continues to disintegrate, Microsoft may feel compelled to push harder on Windows 10 adoption and paid services to prove it can survive without a viable smartphone. CEO Satya Nadella’s strategy is simple enough: grow Microsoft’s revenues by convincing customers to adopt its paid subscription services.

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