Crescent Dunes looks and sounds a bit like an invention lifted from a science fiction novel. Deep in the Nevada desert more than 10,000 mirrors--each the size of a highway billboard--neatly encircle a giant 640-foot tower. It looks like it might be used to communicate with aliens in deep space. But the engineers and financiers behind the facility, located in the desert about halfway between Las Vegas and Reno, say the power plant's promise is anything but fiction. The solar power facility built and operated by the company SolarReserve can power 75,000 homes.

The consumer drones that opened the skies to the public may one day be giving a bird's eye view to Chinese authorities. Chinese drone maker DJI -- the world's largest maker of small drones -- said it was in talks with Chinese officials who want access to the data collected by its products, Bloomberg reports. That data could include flight records, GPS information and even video. Whether this applied to Chinese customers only, or customers in Europe and the U.S., has not been made fully clear. "Should DJI receive a valid legal request from a government agency," spokesperson Oliver Wang said in a statement to media, "we may provide user information to that agency, just as other companies do.

As it turns out, Siri isn't good at keeping secrets. On Monday, multiple users on Twitter and Apple news tracking site 9to5Mac reported that Apple's personal assistant is so excited for the company's next developer conference, she is revealing the official dates before the tech giant itself. The official WWDC website still reflects the logo and information surrounding WWDC 2015. If Siri is correct, Apple is planning to hold its 2016 Worldwide Developer Conference from June 13 to June 17 in San Francisco, Calif. Past developer events have also been held in San Francisco at the Moscone West Convention Center.

I'll be honest: Even though I'm supposed to be a technology expert, I've long resisted using Siri and my smartphone's voice commands. All the errors were frustrating and often seemed to eat up more time than just typing in commands and opening up apps manually. These days, though, I've found myself using Siri more often. Speech recognition has gotten a lot better, and Siri has gotten a lot smarter and more powerful. You can do virtually anything via your phone's voice commands, from posting to Twitter to finding the best pizza pie to figuring out just how deep 20,000 leagues really is.

It's an alt-history sci-fi game (designed from the ground up for virtual reality) where Kennedy was never assassinated and NASA and Russia established a permanent moon base before expanding to the outer reaches of our solar system.

The environmental costs of moving data around the world or building a better smartphone often go unappreciated. Both tasks take a great deal of energy and other resources, though the effects are often felt hundreds or thousands of miles from most end users. The world's biggest technology firms are increasingly focused on finding ways to go green. Facebook announced in January that it is building a new data center in Ireland powered entirely by renewable energy. In March, Apple introduced a recycling robot named "Liam" that can surgically disassemble old iPhones so their parts can be reused.

For 20 years she's been studying what transport gurus call shared mobility, dissecting factors that make it successful, like shorter wait times. Though you might think choosing how to get to work is simple, Shaheen will tell you that especially in urban areas, there are countless factors in play, from the time of day you're on the move to whether you own a smartphone. And more than any of the tech executives giving speeches lately about how we all should rethink our relationship to our cars, she knows just how revolutionary that could be. Walking the halls of one of the nation's oldest departments dedicated to transportation research, at the University of California, Berkeley, the engineering professor wonders how our lives would have turned out if the Model T had been marketed as something to be shared, not owned home by home. Would our vehicles still be idle an estimated 95% of the time?

If you find yourself saying you "just don't have time" to squeeze in a workout or get some extra chores done around the house, Google wants to help. With the new feature, you can create a particular goal, such as exercising or reading, and Google Calendar will automatically block out time for you to fulfill that objective. The app uses machine learning to understand your schedule and preferences, allowing it to set goals for times that make sense for you without your intervention. After you tell Google Calendar about your goal and how much time you want to dedicate to it, the app will search your schedule for available times. If you create a new event during a goal slot, Calendar will move that slot to another available time.

Last September, Minecraft-developer Mojang surprised many by adding the option for anyone with the Windows 10, Windows Phone, iOS and Android versions of the game to quarry together in the same blocky worlds. But there was a catch: Everyone had to be on the same local network, relegating collaborative endeavors to house parties. Mojang has confirmed cross-platform play (Windows 10, Windows Phone, iOS and Android) is coming to Minecraft Realms, its subscription-based hosting service. Around since 2013, Realms turns Minecraft server hosting over to Mojang for 8 a month, removing the technical busywork of setting up your own server, and ensuring your worlds are available 24/7. If you're an Android user, the Realms Android Alpha is both free and available immediately, though you'll need to set up an Xbox Live account (if you don't have one) to sign in.

One of the arguments for self-driving cars is that they will be safer than human-driven vehicles.Human error is the cause of 94% of car crashes, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Those errors include drunk driving, speeding, distraction, and fatigue. But a new report finds that self-driving cars can't be tested enough hours to determine their safety. The report from research firm RAND Corporationsays autonomous vehicles would need to be tested "hundreds of millions of miles and sometimes hundreds of billions of miles" to gain enough information to compare its safety to human-driven automobiles. Such thorough testing would require "tens and sometimes hundreds of years," which would make it impractical to accomplish before clearing the vehicles for regular consumer use, the report said.