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.

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.

Ed Zitron on big tech, backlash, boom and bust: 'AI has taught us that people are excited to replace human beings' His blunt, brash scepticism has made the podcaster and writer something of a cult figure. But as concern over large language models builds, he's no longer the outsider he once was I f some time in an entirely possible future they come to make a movie about "how the AI bubble burst", Ed Zitron will doubtless be a main character. He's the perfect outsider figure: the eccentric loner who saw all this coming and screamed from the sidelines that the sky was falling, but nobody would listen. Just as Christian Bale portrayed Michael Burry, the investor who predicted the 2008 financial crash, in The Big Short, you can well imagine Robert Pattinson fighting Paul Mescal, say, to portray Zitron, the animated, colourfully obnoxious but doggedly detail-oriented Brit, who's become one of big tech's noisiest critics. This is not to say the AI bubble burst, necessarily, but against a tidal wave of AI boosterism, Zitron's blunt, brash scepticism has made him something of a cult figure. His tech newsletter, Where's Your Ed At, now has more than 80,000 subscribers; his weekly podcast, Better Offline, is well within the Top 20 on the tech charts; he's a regular dissenting voice in the media; and his subreddit has become a safe space for AI sceptics, including those within the tech industry itself - one user describes him as "a lighthouse in a storm of insane hypercapitalist bullshit".

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.

I walked literal miles to find what's here. Recyclables in the trash is my metaphor here. Every third booth at CES showed off some new AI product or other. If you wanted to find a robotic lawn mower, throw a rock. Humanoid robots, smart locks and super thin TVs were everywhere.

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.

Gaming tech, foldables, wearables and AI gadgets from the likes of NVIDIA, Samsung, Pebble, Lenovo, Meta and Razer dominated the first day of CES 2026. With its XD Rollable concept, Lenovo took the Thinkbook Plus Gen 6's basic design and made it even more futuristic by allowing its flexible display to wrap around onto its lid. CES 2026's first official show day kept the pace up with a mix of near-term gaming upgrades, ambitious new form factors and a few reminders that not every gadget needs to do everything. NVIDIA announced important gaming news, we caught up with Samsung's tri-fold phone and Lenovo marched out an army of impressive looking gaming laptops and concept tech. Here are the biggest stories from January 6.

Samsung and LG showed off TVs and other home products, including a home helper robot. 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 has already held its First Look presentation, which focuses on home products, while LG has shown off a wide array of TVs. Presentations from NVIDIA, Sony, Lego, Hyundai and others are yet to come.

Meta says it is acquiring the Chinese-founded AI firm Manus as it looks to boost the capabilities of its tech. Bloomberg analysts and The Wall Street Journal suggested the purchase could be worth more than $2bn (£1.48bn). Meta said the deal would help improve its own AI by giving people access to agents - tools which can do complex things with minimal user interaction such as planning trips or making presentations. Manus's exceptional talent will join Meta's team to deliver general-purpose agents across our consumer and business products, including Meta AI, it said in a blog post. Barton Crockett, analyst at Rosenblatt Securities, told Reuters it was a natural fit for Meta, which extended into boss Mark Zuckerberg's vision of personal AI using agents.