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Tech News Today for February 16, 2017

Tech News for Thursday February 16, 2017

The Seoul Central District Court in South Korea issued an arrest warrent for Jay Y Lee, acting head of Samsung, alleging bribery, perjury and embezzlement. The court is seeking his arrest as a way to prevent the destruction of evidence or fleeing the country as the trial could be lengthy. Lee allegedly paid close to $38 million to South Korean President Park Geun-hye in an attempt to solidify his chances at maintaining his position within Samsung. Samsung is South Korea's most powerful and influential company. Read more at bloomberg.com.

Alex Kantrowitz from Buzzfeed says Twitter has begun to put abusers in a "Time Out." Last week the company began rolling out a temporary throttle for accounts seen as abusive, in order to prevent people from harrassing users. If Twitter detects that the content of your Tweet has violated their rules, they will send you a notification that says your account features have been temporarily limited and if the person you have tweeted at does not follow you, they will not see your tweet in their mentions. Read more at buzzfeed.com.

A new feature is rolling out to Google Home users that Amazon Echo users have enjoyed since the device launched. Now Home users can purchase everyday items from companies like Costco, Whole Foods, Bed Bath & Beyond, and more thanks to new support for Google Express. Users simply say “OK Google… order paper towels” and Home will say “Got it, ordering paper towels” and the order will be placed. Users must enter payment info into the Home app to get started. Read more at techcrunch.com.

Maker of spectacular rainbow vomit filters, Snap, has lowered its valutation expectations in its eagerly anticipated IPO. The company set market value for its initial public offering at between $19.5 billion and $22.2 billion, which is less than the rumored $25 billion valuation. That's a valuation range of $14 to $16 a share for the offering of 230 million shares. Snap is also the first company in the US to issue non-voting shares. Read more at bloomberg.com.

Machine Learning is helping Google’s Project Loon balloons to cut down on the number of balloons needed to provide internet connectivity to those below. Improvements to altitude control and navigation mean that Google can launch fewer balloons that make small loops over covered areas based on machine learning, instead of following a set path. That also allows engineers to reduce the time needed to launch the project. Read more at recode.net.

Megan Morrone and Jason Howell are joined today by Rhett Allain of Wired to talk about the rumors of wireless charging in the next iPhone. Tech News Today streams live weekdays at 4PM Pacific, 7PM Eastern at twit.tv/live. You can subscribe to the show and watch it on-demand at twit.tv/tnt.

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