Stuck in regulatory limbo, the self-driving-vehicle developer is encouraging residents of Washington, DC, to message public officials to help get its robotaxis onto roads. Waymo needs some help, according to an email message the self-driving developer sent to residents of Washington, DC, on Thursday. For more than a year, Waymo has been pushing city officials to pass new regulations allowing its robotaxis to operate in the district. So far, self-driving cars can test in the city with humans behind the wheel, but cannot operate in driver-free mode. The Alphabet subsidiary--and its lobbyists--have asked local lawmakers, including Mayor Muriel Bower and members of the city council, to create new rules allowing the tech to go truly driverless on its public roads.

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The company's robotaxi service is supposed to launch in the US capital this year. But while service rollouts have been relatively smooth in other cities, DC's rules have made things tricky. Waymo, the Alphabet subsidiary that develops self-driving vehicle tech, has picked up speed. The company now operates robotaxis in six cities and has announced plans to launch in a dozen others this year. It j ust raised $16 billion in a new round of funding and says it has served over 20 million rides since the company launched its service in 2020, 14 million of them in 2025 alone.

Volvo's Electric EX60 SUV Has a 400-Mile Range--and Rethinks the Humble Seat Belt The Swedish brand's latest computer-packed EV hopes to take on and beat the BMW iX3. Alongside the chosen few in WIRED's breakdown of the most anticipated EVs coming this year, the arrival of the Volvo EX60 has also been eagerly awaited. This is mainly because of the impressive stats surrounding the car; the headline claim is a range of more than 400 miles. Sitting between the EX40 and EX90, the new EV looks more like a sibling of the entry-level EX30, which is a good car but too fast for its own good . Plus, the reveal images here from Volvo initially seem to show that the design team has figured out a way to remove the unsightly lidar roofline bulges that in some eyes ruined the finished aesthetic of the EX90.

AI chatbots can take on many roles in our lives. James Muldoon's Love Machines looks into the relationships we're forging with them Artificial intelligence is now unavoidable - although there are those among us who try. Even if you don't seek out a chatbot, you will see new icons in your current apps to bring them within a single click: WhatsApp, Google Drive, even Microsoft Notepad, the simplest program imaginable. The tech industry is making an enormous and costly bet on AI, and, in turn, is forcing it on users to make good on this investment. Many are embracing it to take over writing, admin or planning, and a minority are going a step further and forming intimate relationships with it.

Cute robots, lightweight EVs and a surprisingly quiet leaf blower are among the tech that stood out as the show winds down. Two OlloBots -- one with a long furry purple neck, making it about two feet taller than the other -- are pictured on a light purple floor, in front of a screen displaying a closeup of a child playing with blocks. Even as CES 2026 wraps up soon, there's no shortage of standout hardware hiding in plain sight. From genuinely quieter yard tools to ultra-light EVs and companion robots that want to remember your family, Day 3 was all about tech that felt a little more considered -- and in some cases, refreshingly practical. If you can't get enough of CES, be sure to check out our picks for best of CES 2026, which highlights the most impressive new tech we've seen in Las Vegas.

Engadget's best of CES 2026: All the new tech that caught our eye in Las Vegas This year, over 4,000 exhibitors descended on Las Vegas, Nevada to showcase their wares at CES, and the Engadget team was out in full force . The week started with press conferences from the biggest companies at the show, which were often a flurry of AI buzzwords, vague promises and very little in the way of hard news. More than one company even decided to forgo announcing things during their conferences to make way for more AI chatter, only to publish press releases later quietly admitting that, yes, actually, they did make some consumer technology. It's appropriate, I guess, that as we're beginning to feel the knock-on cost effects of the AI industry's insatiable appetite for compute resources -- higher utility bills and device prices -- companies would rather use their flashy conferences to reinforce AI's supposedly must-have attributes rather than actually inform the public about their new products. We're by no means AI luddites at Engadget, but it's fair to say that our team is more excited by tangible products that enrich our lives than iterative improvements to large language models. So, away from all of the bombast of NVIDIA's marathon keynote and Lenovo's somehow simultaneously gaudy and dull Sphere show, it's been a pleasure to evaluate the crowd of weird new gadgets, appliances, toys and robots vying for our attention.

It's the first week of a new year and there's no time for the tech world to slowly ease back into things following the holidays. That's because CES 2026 is in full swing, with all manner of companies descending on Las Vegas to reveal their latest innovations and what they're planning to bring your way in the near future. Many of the Engadget crew are on the ground to check out as much of the new tech as possible. Samsung held its First Look presentation, which focuses on home products, while LG has shown off a wide array of TVs and Lego unveiled its new Smart Brick technology. We've heard from the major chipmakers, gone hands-on with Samsung's trifold phone, checked out some funky laptops and seen some cute robots. There's some hot gaming gear at the show too, not to mention some weird tech . You don't necessarily have to wait to get your hands on all of these gadgets either. Some are available to buy right now. You can catch up on all of the big CES 2026 announcements (and some of the more offbeat gizmos we've seen) right here. We'll be keeping this story updated throughout the week. We also have CES live updates, with all the latest news from the event. Lego introduced the Smart Brick at CES 2026. In its first CES appearance, Lego announced the Smart Brick, a standard-sized brick with a 4.1mm ASIC chip inside that's designed to respond in different ways depending on what set you're building and how you're building it. Using what Lego calls the "Play Engine" and integrated copper coils, each brick can sense things like motion, orientation and magnetic fields, plus its own distance, direction and orientation in relation to other Smart Bricks. Each brick also has a teeny tiny speaker built in that will play audio "tied to live play actions" rather than only pre-recorded clips. Accompanying Smart Bricks are Smart Tags and Smart Minifigures, which have their own capabilities -- one of which is letting Smart Bricks know what context they are being used in. All of these pieces tie together via a local wireless layer dubbed BrickNet that, in part, lets Smart Bricks know where they are placed in relation to other smart components.

Robots, toys and practical tech dominated our time on the show floor. CES 2026's second day was all about hands on time with new tech. From Lego's most ambitious play experiment yet to assistive mobility tech, smart home ideas that actually feel affordable and robots that might one day fold your laundry, here's what stood out most on January 7. LEGO's new Smart Play system feels far more compelling in person than it did on stage. The Smart Brick, combined with Smart Tags and Smart Minifigures, responds dynamically to movement, proximity and context, triggering sounds and interactions without screens or apps. Seeing kids physically act out Star Wars battles while the bricks reacted in real time made it clear this is designed first and foremost for active social play, not digital distraction. WheelMove's motorized wheelchair attachment is compact, surprisingly quick to install and genuinely empowering in action.