SoftBank Group Corp. has approached China's Didi Chuxing Technology Co. about investing roughly $6 billion to help the ride-hailing firm expand in self-driving car technologies, two people familiar with the matter said. The bulk of the investment would likely come from SoftBank's planned $100 billion Vision Fund, in hopes of unlocking new value in China's expanding ride-hailing market, one of the people said. The technology fund, originally slated to launch in January, has been delayed as SoftBank weighs different...

Don't be alarmed if you happen to see someone using a Galaxy Note7 over the summer. Ahead of this week's Galaxy S8 unveiling, Samsung has announced a three-point program for recycling of its failed phablets, and some of them will eventually make…

Starship Technologies' delivery robots, which can be found traveling the sidewalks of Washington, D.C., get smarter the more they drive -- learning about sidewalk and traffic patterns with every trip they take. Starship Technologies' delivery robots, which can be found traveling the sidewalks of Washington, D.C., get smarter the more they drive -- learning about sidewalk and traffic patterns with every trip they take. Here's a classic big city dilemma (sorry suburban folks): It's late at night, the weather is bad, and you're hungry. Your favorite restaurant is less than a mile away, but you don't want to leave the house, and you don't want to pay a $5 delivery fee -- plus tip -- for a $10 meal. Back in the old days, you would have braved the elements -- or learned to plan ahead. But those days are coming to an end, at least in Washington, D.C.

As reported by Variety, Verizon stated that "Once we were notified that our ads were appearing on non-sanctioned websites, we took immediate action to suspend this type of ad placement and launched an investigation." Its action followed AT&T, which named Google specifically, in a statement that "We are deeply concerned that our ads may have appeared alongside YouTube content promoting terrorism and hate. Until Google can ensure that this won't happen again, we are removing our ads from Google's non-search platforms." As much as we talk about projects like Android, self-driving cars and AI, Google is still largely an advertising company (in January it reported that of $26 billion in revenue overall for Q4, $22.04 billion came from advertising across various platforms). As such, even a temporary loss of business from two of the largest advertisers in the US is the kind of painful prompt that may speed up its action.

T-Mobile is now offering the LG G6 for pre-order, ahead of its April 7 release date. The smartphone will sell for $650 or $26 down and $26 per month for 24 months as per the T-Mobile's equipment installment plan. The carrier is also offering a free Google Home AI assistant to those who purchase the LG G6 before April 30. Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint have already opened pre-order for the LG G6 and will release the device March 30. U.S. Cellular preorders begin March 24. All carriers have their own deals associated with the LG G6 release date.

Thanks to Vodafone, the Taurus-Littrow Valley will get its first mobile phone base station next year. It hasn't needed one up to now, as the last visitors drove through in 1972, the year before the mobile phone was invented. Next year, though, it will get the very latest in 4G LTE coverage, when it receives a visit from two very special self-driving vehicles. Taurus-Littrow is the landing site of Apollo 17, where humans last walked on the moon. Next year, an international group based in Berlin plans to send a mission carrying two lunar rovers to explore the site.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is simultaneously overhyped, misunderstood, and already hugely impactful, according to Pegasystems CTO Don Schuerman, who said many organisations were already successfully using the technology before it became an industry buzzword. Schuerman told ZDNet that he has been encouraging his clients to take a look at what pragmatic AI technologies they can employ to deliver real benefits to how they interact with customers, rather than succumbing to the hype. The best example is what the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) is doing, he said. "They've got Pegasystems' product called the Customer Decision Hub, which uses predictive analytics and adaptive or self-learning analytics to figure out in real time what the best offer or service is, or recommendations are, to put in front of a customer either to improve their satisfaction rate and retention rate, for example," he explained. In implementing the technology, CBA has increased its branch sell rates by 13 percent, which Schuerman said is a significant impact to the business.

Over the past several months, smartphone manufacturers have been hungering for a new hook -- a new way to make mobile devices seem fresh, exciting, and wallet-worthy at a point when last year's models still seem perfectly fine to most people. It's a cycle we've seen in AndroidLand plenty of times before. In the early days, each new iteration of a phone was faster than the last. Then came the display resolution phase. We saw a similar thing with camera quality for a while.

The company confirms its AI assistant will have its own side button on the S8. Eventually, you'll be able to boss it around on more than just a phone. Check out our playlists http://cnet.co/2g8kcf4 Follow us on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/cnet Follow us on Instagram: http://bit.ly/2icCYYm

Samsung has finally announced its artificial intelligence-based voice assistant, Bixby on Monday. The assistant is expected to be one of the features of the Samsung Galaxy S8, when it is announced on March 29. "Bixby will be our first step on a journey to completely open up new ways of interacting with your phone. At the launch of the Galaxy S8, a subset of preinstalled applications will be Bixby-enabled. This set will continue to expand over time. Our plan is to eventually release a tool (in SDK) to enable third-party developers to make their applications and services Bixby-enabled easily," InJong Rhee, executive vice-president, head of research and development, software and services said in the official press release.