Gadgetory

the future of owning a self-driving car is becoming a reality this summer I'm Bridget Carey and this is your CNET update self-driving cars will be on the roads this summer Tesla Motors announced that it will add self-driving software to current model as sedans within the next three months these are cars people can buy right now with the software update drivers don't need to put their hands on the wheel to drive technically you don't even need to be in the seat for it to work but this is very questionable legal territory we're getting into because the laws that exist for driverless cars were written for testing cars not for every Joe consumer to try out the technology has the capability to be able to go from one destination to another on a road trip without a human touching anything but Tesla says it won't allow that much autopilot freedom in this update also Tesla's electric cars will be getting another update to monitor the status of charging stations so drivers won't have to worry about running out of battery power which is a scary feeling although not as scary as driving next to cars without people in the driver's seat Amazon is also about to take off with a different sort of autopilot delivery drones have been given the green light to take flight by the Federal Aviation Administration Amazon has permission to conduct research on its prime air delivery drones as long as these are remotely controlled by licensed pilots in the daylight and the drones cannot fly higher than 400 feet Amazon also has to give the FAA monthly reports on all the data from these tests Amazon is not the only tech company working on drones that can drop off packages Google's working on a new project wing prototype after the first single wing design failed the head of the project said the drones had trouble hovering in high winds and cargo shifted too much and since we're talking about futuristic technology the company magic leap is teasing the world with a video that shows how it could bring 3d animated images to the real world with special goggles in the video we get examples of how apps and email may be controlled an augmented reality with menus floating around our field of vision and then we see the wearer starts to play a video game picking up virtual laser guns with his hand to shoot robots that are appearing in the office magic leap has yet to reveal what its headset or goggles will look like so this is all very mysterious and this video is likely taking some creative liberties and stretching the truth in this portrayal of how in advance the technology could be but maybe someday it won't be so far-fetched it's an area many are researching now including Microsoft with its hololens augmented reality headgear that's your tech news update and you can stay updated at cnet.com and you can also follow along on twitter and subscribe to the podcast from our studios in New York I'm Bridget Carey