It takes a lot of fuel to break free from Earth's gravity and navigate outer space. A staggering 90 percent of a rocket's initial mass is made up of propellant. What if we could trim that fat, launch spaceships with minimal resources, and collect the rest of what we need along the way? Such "massless exploration" is very likely our future in space. Imagine we wanted to rendezvous with a distant asteroid and bring back samples from its surface. "Today, that mission would have to be launched with enough propellant for the entire round trip," Kyle Doyle, program manager of Cornell's Cislunar Explorers, told Digital Trends.

Modern technology is fundamentally reshaping our electoral process. It's time to make it work for us. Public and open debate is a central achievement of democracy. It is a forum for people to articulate their viewpoints, exhibiting candid passion and offering sound facts and logic. It is also a powerful instrument to share informed knowledge with a wide audience of people who possess less subject matter expertise. In the philosophy of Aristotle, public debate is the task of a class of virtuous men, for they, in his mind, constitute ideal rulers and are responsible for sharing their wisdom with common households.

Russia will shoot down internet drones that pose a threat to the country's security, reports said Tuesday, citing Russian officials. Several tech companies, including Google and Facebook, are planning to provide internet using drones to remote places that do not have access to the cyberspace. State-run telecom company Rostelecom cautioned the Russian telecommunications industry that internet-sharing drones, such as those from Britain's OneWeb and South Korea's Samsung, are likely to pose a security threat, Russian language Life news reported. "Ground operators might encounter problems. If foreign players win here, it could be an issue for [Russia's] sovereignty. Whoever controls the information controls the world," a representative for Rostelecom reportedly said.

India and the United States are reportedly pushing forward a deal for the supply of Predator drone aircraft in order to complete the project before U.S. President Barack Obama leaves office early next year. The aim is to complete the main process in the next few months," Reuters quoted a government official in New Delhi -- speaking on condition of anonymity -- as saying. He was referring to the country's request for 22 Predator Guardian drones -- to be used for military surveillance -- that was made in June this year. India is apparently rushing to conclude the deal under the Obama administration as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi shares cordial relations with the American president after several personal interactions since the former took office in 2014. India serves as a strategic partner in the U.S. mission to tackle terrorism in the region while Washington has replaced Moscow as the top arms supplier to New Delhi.

Following a AU 1.2 million investment, the Victorian government, in conjunction with the Transport Accident Commission and VicRoads, has partnered with automotive parts giant Bosch for the development of the first self-driving vehicle in Australia. According to Victorian Minister for Roads and Road Safety Luke Donnellan, the vehicle under construction in Clayton, Victoria, has been designed to navigate roads with or without driver input and includes the ability to detect and avoid hazards such as pedestrians, cyclists, and other vehicles. "By removing human error from the equation, self-driving vehicles will play a critical role in reducing deaths and serious injuries on Victorian roads," Donnellan said. "This self-driving car is at the forefront of automated vehicle technology and it's been developed right here in Melbourne by local engineers." The minister said trials of the self-driving vehicle will be used to inform the development of regulations and infrastructure to enable similar cars to operate on the state's roads in the future.

When heavy August rain flooded Louisiana neighborhoods, residents self-organized in online communities to reach out for help. For federal service providers, the problem was taking all that information and using it to provide assistance. "The difficulty was how do you take that data and make it A) digestible and B) actionable in a way, or even to be able to spot trends before they happen," said Justin Herman, SocialGov community leader at the General Services Administration. "This isn't just like an outreach thing, this isn't just a chatbot thing, this is being able to look at where to provide lifesaving food, water, shelter into areas." Register for the Ask the CIO Chat with Andy Ozment of the Homeland Security Department on Oct. 11, at 1:30 p.m.

Golden parachutes can't seem to stay out of the news. Last year, Jeff Smisek, the former CEO of United Airlines, received a separation payment of 4.875 million in cash along with additional equity awards and other benefits for a total of close to 37 million after being ousted from his company. Can it also transform the nation? Hillary Clinton was campaigning for her husband in January 1992 when she learned of the race's newest flare-up: Gennifer Flowers had just released tapes of phone calls with Bill Clinton to back up her claim they had had an affair. We tend to associate salads most closely with spring and summer, when fresh produce is at its peak and when we're all in the mood for lighter, fresher-tasting meals.

Artificial intelligence, once restricted to NASA and sci-fi movies, is gradually becoming a prominent buzzword in the world of marketing technology. However, the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence in marketing is likely several years away as its application is not yet fully developed. But innovations taking place now are setting the stage for artificial intelligence and, more specifically, machine learning, to become a marketing standard in the near future. Many use the two terms of artificial intelligence and machine learning interchangeably; because they are so closely related, it is difficult to establish clear boundaries between them. While artificial intelligence refers to technology that has the cognitive capabilities to solve problems, machine learning allows marketers to learn and understand, among other things, how content is consumed, and helps them predict consumer behaviors based on data patterns and algorithms.

Virginia Tech was the envy of other college students when Alphabet's Project Wing and Chipotle announced plans to deliver burritos to campus by drone. The experiment is now underway and students are receiving stuffed burritos at a designated location from the unmanned aerial vehicles. This testing will generate data on navigational accuracy and vehicle performance to help regulators understand how drones should operate in public airspace. Alphabet's Project Wing and Chipotle have begin testing their pilot project that delivers burritos to campus using drones. Alphabet Inc's Project Wing and Chipotle have started a pilot program that delivers burritos to the students of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.

During the last two years, Microsoft has upped the ante on Machine Learning and Analytics. From hiring top notch data scientists to acquiring niche startups, Redmond has made the all the right moves to transform Azure into one of the best analytics platforms. These investments have started to pay off for the company. It has been successful in articulating and demonstrating the value of data-driven insights to governments, medical institutions, and public sector organizations.