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  • Samsung’s SmartThings app gets more home automation capabilities

    Samsung has updated SmartThings, its app that lets users control the company’s IoT devices, with new home automation capabilities in an apparent bid to cross-sell more of its smart home devices and appliances to existing customers. Besides the automation features, users will get new integrations with the Samsung Health app, an intercom feature, and support…

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  • WordPress.com launches a free AI-powered website builder

    Hosting platform WordPress.com on Wednesday launched a new AI website builder that allows anyone to create a functioning website using an AI chat-style interface. The feature, which is being made available to WordPress users for free, is targeted at entrepreneurs, freelancers, bloggers, and others who need a professional online presence, the company says. At this…

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  • Instagram tests locked reels that can be accessed with secret codes

    Instagram appears to be quietly testing locked reels that viewers would have to unlock with a code and a provided hint. The feature is a simple way to increase engagement with the creator’s content, but it could also offer creators and celebrities a way to share exclusive reels with their most dedicated fans, who are…

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  • Nuro’s $106M raise backs its shift from delivery robots to licensing autonomy tech

    After months of hearty marketing efforts and large-scale technology demos across the U.S., Nuro has secured $106 million in fresh funding to help scale its autonomous driving technology and advance commercial partnerships.  The Series E round brings Nuro’s total funding raised to $2.2 billion and its valuation to $6 billion. That’s a drop from the…

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  • The complete agenda for TechCrunch Sessions: AI unveiled

    It’s been a couple of years since our last topic-focused, one-day event — but with AI transforming the tech landscape, we couldn’t miss the chance to gather 1,200 founders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, investors, and anyone shaping the future of AI for a deep dive into what’s next. On June 5 in Zellerbach Hall at UC Berkeley,…

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  • Tessell snags $60M to drive data management at scale

    Tessell, a startup developing a multi-cloud database-as-a-service, has raised $60 million in a new funding round led by WestBridge Capital ahead of its plans to expand its market presence and launch an AI-powered conversational database management service. As data becomes more critical than ever, many companies are struggling to manage and store it efficiently. Legacy…

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  • Solve Intelligence raises fresh $12M to bring AI to IP, patent workflows

    Legal tech has come a long way, but the bulk of an intellectual property or patent lawyer’s work today is still done with spreadsheets, word processors and PDFs. A startup out of Delaware, Solve Intelligence, is using generative AI to speed up that work, believing its tech is uniquely suited to the needs of patent…

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  • Reddit’s conversational AI search tool leverages Google Gemini

    Reddit Answers, the platform’s conversational AI search tool, gets an upgrade through an integration with Google Gemini. This comes over a year after Reddit expanded its partnership with Google Cloud to access its Vertex AI platform to build AI agents. Google and Reddit announced the update on Wednesday, explaining that by incorporating Gemini on Vertex AI,…

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  • Samsung adds Google’s Gemini to its home robot Ballie

    Samsung said on Wednesday that it’s adding Google’s Gemini AI to its home robot Ballie through a partnership with Google Cloud. Users will be able to ask the robot different queries to get answers from Gemini, said the companies. Samsung aims to tap into Gemini’s multimodal capabilities for its robot. The Korean tech giant said…

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  • Gemini Code Assist, Google’s AI coding assistant, gets ‘agentic’ abilities

    Gemini Code Assist, Google’s AI coding assistant, is gaining new “agentic” capabilities in preview. During its Cloud Next conference on Wednesday, Google said Code Assist can now deploy new AI “agents” that can take multiple steps to accomplish complex programming tasks. These agents can create applications from product specifications in Google Docs, for example, or…

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