Gadgetory

only human drivers need lame things like headlights I'm Bridget Carey this is your CNET update when your car is able to drive itself do you really think it needs headlights to see the road ahead Ford is showing how its self-driving test vehicles can drive in complete darkness the car is processing data from 3d maps about the road and it also uses a system of lasers that measure distances and objects around the car of course this is not being tested on real roadways because laws still require lights you know those pesky other humans on the roads still need to be able to see other cars but we humans do love our robots doing the hard work for us like in the case of robot vacuums but one new robot vacuum does not even need a human to help it empty the dustbin the II Kovacs diba d 79 has a charging station that will suck out its own dustbin into a larger vacuum canister so instead of emptying a little bin you empty the bigger canister yeah unfortunately we have yet to develop a system that will dump the dirt in the trash for you which is a feature that I'm sure would be nice when you're paying $700 for it the perk here is that the dustbin can be taken off and attached to a hose for cleaning other areas because you still have to do some work around the house to not live with the shame of couch crumbs meanwhile Google is ending the free ride on its fiber broadband internet connection Google's fiber broadband service is only available in a few areas and to encourage the first customers to switch Google offered a free service of five megabits per second which is actually pretty slow and customers still had to pay a three hundred dollar construction fee the only thing that the slow service was missing was the fun sound effects okay it's not that slow but as Google Fiber expands the free slower option is gone prices for high speeds start at $50 a month and $70 gets you the fastest one gigabit speed which is around a hundred times faster than what most Americans get and looking ahead expect to hear about a new Kindle reader in the next day or so Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos teased on Twitter that a new top-of-the-line Kindle will be announced soon an early report from The Wall Street Journal suggests that the next Kindle is going to be thinner because it'll have a rechargeable battery case that can pop off there's also been some talk of Amazon working on a solar-powered battery case but that may not be quite ready just yet that's all for this tech news roundup and you can head to cnet.com for the latest from our studios in New York I'm Bridget Carey