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The cost of air power is coming down dramatically with the advent of drones. Before long, every country and terrorist organization will have its own DIY air force.



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Today, Intel is launching its long-awaited update and refresh of its top-end enthusiast platform: Haswell-E. It's a refresh that's been a long time coming -- the old X79 chipset was long in the tooth 12 months ago, while the top-end six-core Ivy Bridge didn't overclock well and wasn't a huge improvement over the six-core Sandy Bridge. Will the new hardware put a fresh coat of paint on a lackluster lineup? Let's take a look.



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You don't need an Android phone to run apps designed for the platform—with a few software downloads and a couple of tweaks, you can explore them on your PC.



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DARPA, on the back of the US government's BRAIN program, has begun the development of tiny electronic implants that interface directly with your nervous system and can directly control and regulate many different diseases and chronic conditions, such as arthritis, PTSD, inflammatory bowel diseases (Crohn's disease), and depression. The program, called ElectRx (pronounced 'electrics'), ultimately aims to replace medication with "closed-loop" neural implants, which constantly assess the state of your health, and then provide the necessary nerve stimulation to keep your various organs and biological systems functioning properly.



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Google X, the web titan's secretive special projects lab, has revealed that it's working on a drone-based delivery system called Project Wing. Outwardly, the Google X project sounds a lot like Amazon's Prime Air, but a closer inspection reveals that Google has loftier goals than air-dropping emergency bottles of sriracha.



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NASA's Space Launch System, the USA's first exploration-class spacecraft since the Space Shuttle, has officially passed the whiteboard formulation stage and moved into full-scale development. The SLS, which will be the most powerful rocket ever built, will allow NASA to land astronauts on Mars and captured asteroids, and perhaps other planets and moons throughout the Solar System as well.



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The age-old mystery of the Death Valley sailing stones has finally been solved, thanks to science.



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After years of rumors, leaks, and false starts, it seems the stars are finally swinging into alignment this fall: Apple is now expected to unveil an iWatch smartwatch alongside its new large-screen iPhone 6 at an event on September 9. Presumably the iWatch would also be released alongside the iPhone 6, a week or two later. Previous rumors had pointed to an October unveil for the iWatch, but it seems Apple has moved it forward -- possibly in response to the Samsung Gear S, LG G Watch R, and the Moto 360, all of which will be released over the next month or two. Just as the iPhone and iPad popularized the smartphone and tablet, will the arrival of the iWatch signal the beginning of the wearable computing revolution?



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Whether you like it or not, it seems this fall will be all about the smartwatch. This morning, following LG's tease of the round-faced G Watch R, Samsung has unveiled the Gear S -- the first major smartwatch with its own 3G connection, allowing it to send/receive calls and generally act as an internet-connected smart device without being paired to a nearby smartphone. Is the world ready for a standalone smartwatch? Do we even have the battery technology to allow a 3G smartwatch to run for more than a few hours?



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Starting on October 7th, the unbundled version of the Xbox One's Kinect sensor will go on sale for a whopping $150. That's right, one hundred and fifty American dollars for a peripheral that Microsoft has gone out of its way to distance itself from. With a price that high, who would consider buying this standalone Kinect?



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On Tuesday, Verizon announced that it will launch HD Voice over LTE in the coming weeks. With this launch, Verizon is taking the first step toward shedding CDMA2000 as its primary network platform. With this, using unlocked phones on Verizon and have voice service will soon be possible!



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Researchers in China are reporting that they've taken a big step towards creating a supersonic submarine. This technology, which could just as easily be applied to weaponized torpedoes as military or civilian submarines, could theoretically get from Shanghai to San Francisco -- about 6,000 miles -- in just 100 minutes. If all this doesn't sound crazy enough, get this: This new advance by the Chinese is based on supercavitation, which was originally developed by the Soviets in the '60s, during the Cold War.



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At long last, Google has released a stable 64-bit version of Chrome for Windows. It's faster, more secure, and more stable. Some tasks, such as decoding HD video on YouTube, are 15% faster under the 64-bit version of Chrome. The only major caveat seems to be a lack of support for 32-bit NPAPI plug-ins -- Silverlight and Java, and lots of lesser-known plug-ins, won't work on 64-bit Chrome. That's a small price to pay for increased speed, security, and twice the stability of 32-bit Chrome, though.



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The Fermi National Accelerator Lab near Chicago has a new toy: the Holometer. As its rather fancy name suggests, the Holometer is for testing whether our universe is actually a 2D hologram that's painted on some kind of cosmological horizon, popping into 3D whenever we attempt to observe it (i.e. always). The Holometer will gather data for the next year or so -- after which, there's a very good chance that it'll be able to tell us whether the universe is a hologram or not. And, of course, if the universe is a 2D hologram... what does that make us?



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European regulators may be about to take a closer look at Qualcomm's dominance of the 4G modem business, thanks to an old complaint from rival Icera. Did Qualcomm climb to the top with technological prowess or has it used its market position to take down challengers?



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Sapphire revealed a compact version of a traditionally big graphics card, prompting us to ask the question -- why are GPUs so big to start with?



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According to new Windows 9 leaks and rumors, it seems we could be in for some dramatic changes by the time the first public preview of Windows 9 rolls around on September 30. The most recent leaked builds of Windows 9 (codename Threshold) indicate that Microsoft will finally fix the awful upgrade process that has plagued Windows for almost two decades, replacing it with a one-click upgrade system. Perhaps more excitingly, another source says that Windows 9 will formally split the Metro and Desktop interfaces: Tablets will be restricted to Metro, while laptops and desktops will be locked to the standard Desktop interface.



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It must be the season for exploding rockets: The US Army's experimental Advanced Hypersonic Weapon, which will eventually be able to bomb anywhere in the world within an hour, exploded just four seconds after launch in Alaska. Similar to last week's self-detonating SpaceX rocket, the US Department of Defense detected an error within the system shortly after launch, and thus decided to detonate the entire thing rather than risk any extra collateral damage. No one was injured by the incident, though falling debris did damage the rocket's Kodiak Launch Complex.



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Researchers at Michigan State University have created a fully transparent solar concentrator, which could turn any window or sheet of glass (like your smartphone's screen) into a photovoltaic solar cell. Unlike other 'transparent' solar cells that we've reported on in the past, which are actually quite colorful and opaque, this one really is transparen. The team are confident that the transparent solar panels can be efficiently deployed in a wide range of settings, from "tall buildings with lots of windows or any kind of mobile device that demands high aesthetic quality like a phone or e-reader."



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After weeks of uncertainty and user revolt, the story surrounding Twitch just got more bizarre. Reports are coming in today claiming that Amazon will be acquiring the popular video streaming service, and that only adds to the confusion of the last month or so. This is an unexpected development, but considering other recent acquisitions, buying Twitch makes a lot of sense for Amazon.



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A new paper from the University of Wisconsin tackles the question of whether ARM or x86 is more power efficient with updated processors and results from China's Loongson processor. Does ISA still matter?



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The K900 a big luxury sedan with lots of tech. Others have more.



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At its test site in Texas, a new SpaceX rocket has exploded in mid-air. As far as we're aware, this marks the first major failure for SpaceX's commercial space launch program. In a statement, SpaceX says the rocket detected an anomaly and automatically initiated its self-destruct sequence. No one (and no cows) were harmed in the explosion. A commercial Falcon 9 launch, which was scheduled to put AsiaSat 6 into orbit on Tuesday, has been delayed while SpaceX analyzes the data from the failed test rocket.



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In a rather bizarre twist of events, a group by the name of Lizard Squad has taken hacking to the next level: Not only did the hackers take down the PlayStation Network with a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack, but they also took down Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley's airplane with a bomb threat.



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Cloud-based gaming hasn't taken off largely because of lag. Delivering those frames takes time, but Microsoft's DeLorean might be able to get around that by rendering the future.



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Thanks in large part to the Raspberry Pi, mini PCs are all the rage. In terms of power, none of them quite compare to, for example, a standard gaming rig, but they're slowly creeping toward that end. If some leaked slides are to be believed, then Intel's next NUC is creeping much faster than the competition.



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Gaming rigs have a way of getting expensive, but for gamers who want a powerful machine without breaking the bank, Lenovo's Erazer X510 hits the sweet spot. With an overclockable Core i7 plus great specs, and on sale for $1049, it's a killer value.



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Russian astronauts found actual living organisms in outer space. They were clinging to the side of the International Space Station, and the astronauts aren't sure how they got there.



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In the realms of electronics, magnetism, and quantum mechanics, superconductivity has an almost mythical status. Some materials, when cooled to a critical temperature, electrical resistance instantly drops to zero and magnetic fields are completely ejected. Superconducting magnets are already used in MRI machines and particle accelerators like CERN's LHC, and are being considered for advanced maglev trains. Zero electrical resistance means that a current can flow around a superconducting coil indefinitely (at least 100,000 years) without any applied voltage -- a feature that could completely revolutionize power distribution, power storage, electric motors, computers, and more.



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If you were wondering what kind of graphics we can expect from true next-gen games on the Xbox One, PS4, and PC, feast your eyes on the visual wizardry of French artist Koola. Do not adjust your screen: All of the images and videos that you see in this story were generated in real-time using Unreal Engine 4 (UE4), at decent frame rates (~30-60 fps) on a mid-range gaming PC.



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Google, it has emerged, has built a 'Matrix-style' simulation of the entirety of California to test its self-driving cars. While this in itself isn't massively surprising given Google's history as a software company (though it is a bit scary), the company is also petitioning California's state officials to allow safety testing within the Matrix, instead of testing on real roads. This might sound a little terrifying, but it makes quite a lot of sense for a self-driving car, where there are millions of conditions that need to be tested.



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Microsoft can't stop releasing new features for the Xbox One. Hot off the heels of a brand new system update, news has surfaced regarding two new services available for the Xbox One: the ability to pre-load games before the official release, and the possibility of time-limited demos of full games for Gold members.



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Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is next week, and rumors are flying fast about what the next iPhone is going to be like. It's been nearly nine months since the iPhone 5 launched, and consumers are starting to get antsy. Even if we don't get any substantial information directly from Apple at its keynote on the 10th, parts are starting to leak out, and industry speculation is going wild.



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If you want a versatile laptop that does a little bit of everything, check out today's big discount on the newly updated Lenovo Z50. This laptop packs a Core i7 processor, dedicated graphics, great specs and respectable portability, all for just $729 after our coupon code is applied. That's $370 off the regular price.



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Microsoft is planning to release a preview build of Windows 9 at a special press event on September 30, according to sources familiar with Microsoft's plans. It's still unclear exactly how many of Windows 9's hotly anticipated features will actually make it into the September 30 release -- but hopefully we'll at least see the resurrected Start menu and Metro apps running on the Desktop. We wouldn't be surprised if you have to wait a little longer for the consumer preview of Windows 9 before you get to play with your new Cortana digital assistant, however.



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The Chairless Chair is an exoskeleton that attaches to your legs and lets you sit back, as if you're sitting on a chair -- but, in the words of Morpheus, there is no chair. Rather than relying on the tensile strength of solid wood or plastic and the gravity-defying nature of three or more supporting legs, the Chairless Chair uses clever battery-powered mechanics to achieve the same effect. When turned off, the Chairless Chair allows you to walk around normally. There are many uses, from production line work, to sitting on a crowded train.



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A new instruction set by the original creator of MIPS aims to reinvent the ultra-low power, high-efficiency processor -- and to do so with an architecture that's fundamentally open and available to anyone who wants to build a chip. Can that approach succeed in the modern era?



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Forget radar--it may be possible to create a mesh network for cars with a few flashing LEDs.



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Dell is offering a sizable savings on several of their most popular desktops today, highlighted by a well spec'd Core i5 slim tower for just $500, the lowest price we've seen. Killer deals are also available on Core i3 and Core i7 desktops too, with up to $501 in total savings.



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I think we can all agree that the physicists, engineers, and chemists who worked on the Manhattan Project -- which ultimately ended World War II -- were consummate geniuses and paragons of professionalism. Except they weren't. The demon core of plutonium claimed numerous lives at Los Alamos due to sloppy science.



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Smartphones have surged in developing markets over the past few years, and it's been catastrophic for PC sales -- for the first time, we've got data on exactly how bad the worldwide damage is.



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It might look like some kind of crazy machination that adorned the cover of Popular Aviation back in the '60s, the flying machine pictured above is the real deal. Developed by NASA, GL-10 Greased Lightning is an unmanned hybrid-electric aircraft that can swivel its wings and engines -- into the vertical position for vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL), and then horizontal for conventional flight. The fairly recent advent of electric propulsion -- thanks in large to the growing power and energy density of batteries -- allows for some very efficient hybrid-electric aircraft designs that could finally replace the current (massively inefficient) king of VTOL: the helicopter.



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What spans 1,600 hectares, cost $2.2 billion to build, and fries up to 28,000 birds per year? The new BrightSource solar power plant in California's Mojave Dessert. The plant, which uses some 350,000 garage-door-sized mirrors to focus sunlight on three boiler towers, also acts as a death ray, instantly igniting and killing any wildlife that happen to fly through the intense beam of light. Wildlife officials are concerned that this concentrated solar power plant, and others like it, could turn into “mega-trap” that decimates the ecosystem -- first attracting insects, and then attracting birds that eat insects.



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Sony's PlayStation 4 console is lighting up sales charts, and even the company isn't sure why. Could a reversal or collapse strike the console? We think not.



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Scientists from China have figured out a way to image the vasculature of the heart in unprecedented detail. Their secret is to inject a shot of liquid gallium metal.



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Not content with producing the best media streaming box on the market, Roku has now set its sights on the television market by releasing an HDTV with all of the Roku's streaming capabilities built in.



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I'll be the first to admit that there is plenty of room for improvement, but let me explain why PS Now is actually better than I expected it to be.



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AMD is pushing into the consumer SSD space and partnering with OCZ to do it. Will consumers bite or is AMD bringing too little to an already saturated, and highly competitive, market?



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A new type of solar panel for spacecrafts blooms like a flower thanks to origami-inspired design.



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This month's Xbox One system update is rolling out today, and it adds some long-awaited features. 3D Blu-ray support, remote game downloads, and improved notifications are all being added. These frequent additions and refinements certainly aren't a panacea for the Xbox One's public perception problems, but these monthly updates go a long way in reassuring existing owners that Redmond isn't resting on its laurels.



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