| Samsung tells its tale of bad batteries, Trump's taxes remain a mystery and Teslas will get under-the-hood hardware improvements about as often as your smartphone. All that and more in The Daily Crunch for January 23, 2017. And Sprint – good luck with that Tidal wave. 1. Samsung explains its battery woes Samsung initially didn't do a great job of investigating the root causes of its Note 7 battery issues, which resulted in a second batch of batteries that also tended to explode. Now the smartphone maker has shared the results of its lengthy inquiry into what went wrong both times. Basically, the issue stems from the company wanting to take up less space with protective coverings, and more space with actual cells, and the second replacement battery had a manufacturing defect owing partly to the rush to bring it to market. Samsung says these things won't happen again now that the causes have been identified. The pressure's still on, though. 
2. First Whitehouse.gov petition since Trump took over asks for his tax returns Trump's tax returns are still of interest to the American public, and the quick success of a new Whitehouse.gov petition, the first filed after the new administration took over, makes that clear. The petition crossed the required 100,000 signature mark which requires a response in under a day, and now has nearly 300,000 signatories. Trump's side remains steadfast in refusing to do this, however. 3. Qualcomm shoots back at Apple Huge lawsuits over intellectual property and competitiveness? It's like the heady heydays of the smartphone all over again. Qualcomm has returned fire at Apple over its $1 billion lawsuit with a statement that says everything Apple claimed is wrong. 4. The SEC is investigating why Yahoo took its time with hack disclosure Yahoo knew it was hacked as early as 2014, and yet it took until 2016 for it to publicly disclose it. This has the Securities and Exchange Commission curious, so they're looking into the matter. Not something Yahoo needs on top of all its myriad other troubles, including its second huge hack disclosure. 5. Tesla's upgrade pace isn't going to slow If you buy a Tesla today, it could be old on the inside by as early as next year. Tesla's CEO Elon Musk told a Twitter user that they can expect "major" hardware revisions every 12 to 18 months, like the update from HW1 to HW2, presumably. Can't make rapid progress without annoying a few legacy customers. 6. Sprint takes a third of Tidal Sprint has acquired a third of Tidal, and will offer it to its 44 million subscribers as a value-add service. Sounds good for Tidal, which will still be artist-controlled and run, but it's unlikely to save the streaming provider in the long run. 7. Hugo Barra departs Xiaomi When Barra joined Xiaomi, it was a rocket ship that seemed on track for international success. Now it seems like a struggling brand lacking focus. The former Google exec is coming back to the Valley, so that could produce interesting results. | 
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