Mode Media, once a unicorn, is shutting down | Recode Daily: September 16, 2016

Mode Media, a lifestyle publisher and ad network once valued at a billion dollars and projected to generate more than $100 million in revenue this year, is closing its doors. Earlier this year, comScore ranked Mode, originally known as Glam Media, as the 10th largest digital publisher in the U.S., with 137 million visitors.
[Peter Kafka | Recode]

So what was it like to watch Twitter's first livestream of an NFL game? Pretty painless and not too bad overall. But not much different from regular TV, which isn't necessarily a great thing.
[Kurt Wagner and Peter Kafka | Recode]

Samsung and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission finally issued a formal recall of the Galaxy Note 7, citing 92 reports of batteries dangerously overheating. Replacement devices should be available at most retail locations by Sept. 21. So far, of the one million units sold in the U.S., only about 130,000 have been returned as part of an exchange program that Samsung kicked off nearly two weeks ago.
[Ina Fried | Recode]

It takes balls to turn a real NBA player into a video game character — dozens of reflective rubber balls stuck all over a skin-tight suit worn as part of the motion-capture process. Here's what it's like to get into the game in the warehouse studio of 2K Games, makers of the NBA 2K series.
[Kurt Wagner | Recode]

Apple's stock rose again Thursday — now up 12 percent this week and 21 percent for the quarter — as Apple announced that the iPhone 7 Plus and the smaller jet-black iPhone 7 had sold out during the online preorder period. Still, it wasn't all smooth sailing. Apple is working to fix a bug in iOS 10 that leaves some older iPhones unable to connect to T-Mobile, and it's trying to stamp out all the search terms that bring up NSFW images in iMessage GIF searches.
[Lu Wang | Bloomberg]

On the latest episode of Too Embarrassed to Ask, Eaze CEO Keith McCarty talks to Recode's Kara Swisher and The Verge's Lauren Goode about the future of the on-demand cannabis business and the way legalization of marijuana for recreational use can disrupt the illicit drug trade.
[Eric Johnson | Recode]