Microsoft has started taking pre-orders for its second generation Kinect sensor for Windows, Kinect v2. It's priced at $199, and it will be released on July,15th. Kinect v2 aims to succeed the original Kinect for Windows that went on sale in 2012. The device is based on the corresponding sensor for the Xbox One.

The new video and audio enabled motion tracker should allow developers to build better voice and gesture-based interaction models for their Windows apps. It's not destined for consumers yet, as it will be shipped without any software.

Kinect v2

Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, unveiled a demonstration video (Below) of its self-driving Mercedes-Benz Future Truck 2025 on Friday, showing the vehicle driving on its own at high speeds on Germany's autobahn.

Using a system the company calls the Highway Pilot, the human driver is able to switch control of the truck to the vehicle's embedded system and ride hands-free as a passenger.

In order to allow the truck to autonomously drive alongside other cars, the Highway Pilot uses a combination of vehicle-to-vehicle communication via Wi-Fi (with a range of 1,640 feet), lateral radar on both sides of the truck (with a range of 197 feet) and full range (820 feet) and short-range (230 feet) radar mounted on the front of the truck. The truck also uses a front stereo camera, mounted just under its windshield. Check the Video below!

FT-2025 Video Demo

NETGEAR Nighthawk X6 wireless router is the first tri-band wireless router released for consumer use. Hit the jump to learn more about the device's features.

So what are the benefits of a tri-band wireless router? Well, for starters, the X6 has two 5GHz bands and one 2.4GHz bands, which will deliver, theoretically, 3.2Gbps transfer speeds. However, don't expect the router to do this, as the device will not use all of the bands simultaneously to transmit data to your device. It will most likely allocate the different bands to your different tech that you have hooked up to it.

Let's say you're rocking an older laptop with lower WiFi standards than today's more recent products, so the 2.4GHz will be allocated to a lower intensity device. The other two 5GHz bands would be used for devices that use more bsndwidth, naturally.

Nighthawk X6 also has a built-in USB 3.0 stick that supports DLNA and AirPlay streaming, which effectively turns the router into a media hub as well. It packs 5 Gigabit Ethernet Ports, four LAN and one WAN, and it runs on a 1GHz dual-core processor. It's price tag is $299.99 and it's really worth that price.

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The cloud Storage WAR is still ON... Today, Microsoft has decided to upgrade the FREE storage package for its OneDrive Cloud service to match what Google Drive is offering right now. Every OneDrive user will now get 15GB of Free Space (was 8GB before). Also if you want to buy additional space, it's now even more cheaper too.

For example, if you don't want to use Office 365, you can purchase 100GB for $1.99 per month or 200GB for $3.99 per month. The number for 100GB is down from $7.49 per month previously, and now matches Google's new pricing for this tier.

The pricing updates will take effect sometime within the next month, and current subscribers will automatically be migrated to the new structure.

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Latest reports shows that Mozilla is working on a Firefox-OS-powered streaming stick. Mozilla aims to provide an alternative to the Google's Chromecast.

Gigaom have their hands on a prototype version and have shared their insights on what we can expect from the stick. The streaming stick doesn't have a name yet, which should hint that it's far away from reaching the market.

Interestingly enough, however, the Firefox OS streaming stick is capable of playing some Chromecast content. It is detected by the Android YouTube app as a Chromecast and plays video without breaking a sweat. Check out the Hands-on Video below.

Hands-on Video