SpaceX's stock market blast-off could be Musk's biggest gamble yet It's 07:25 am, 13 October 2024, at Starbase, near Boca Chica on the Texas side of the US/Mexico border, and on the launch pad stands the biggest rocket ever made. Its engines fire and it climbs into the skies over the Gulf of Mexico to cheers and screams in the SpaceX control room. But the launch is not the main event. What goes up must come down - and how it comes down will become a milestone in space exploration. Seven minutes later, the massive rocket booster that blasted the craft towards space starts falling back to Earth - until its engines reignite as planned.

The brand's best smart speakers get a new look and more power behind the sound and smarts. Updated design with easier buttons and tap controls. Has Alexa+ right away, no waiting list required. Smart-home hub built into both. Buttons can show oil stains from skin contact.

A British SkySpyke anti-drone system by Quell is seen during the international military exercise Baltic Trust 25 at the Selonia military training ground near Viesite, Latvia, on Aug. 27. The proliferation of uncrewed systems in the Ukraine-Russia war has highlighted the importance of drone defense capabilities. But the dilemma militaries around the world face is that the attack weapons tend to be far cheaper than the response to destroy them. Drone costs can range from just a few hundred to several thousand dollars, and their price tag is rapidly depreciating as innovation and mass production pick up. Efforts to solve that conundrum were on display this week at the DSEI defense expo in London, where the halls were packed with lasers, missiles, jammers and even other drones designed to defeat small, uncrewed threats. What they all had in common was an attempt to bring down the cost per kill."

Of the many reasons Nintendo has flourished during its four-decade run in the video game industry--a Pixar-like dedication to quality, a memorable roster of mascots, an inherent creative brightness that cuts against the grimdark fantasies promulgated by other franchises--the company's prime advantage might be its commitment to affordability. The Nintendo Switch, a massively successful console that first made landfall in 2017, retailed for 299--a bargain compared with the 599 Xbox Series X and 699 PlayStation 5 Pro. The motion-controlled triumph that became all the rage in retirement homes during the mid-2000s? It was priced at 249, half as much as the lumbering PlayStation 3 which arrived one week prior. It's a strategy that has sent an enduring message to consumers.

While President Donald Trump has revealed a tariff exemption for some electronics, video game consoles are not thought to be among them. Christopher Dring, who writes about the gaming industry in The Game Business newsletter, said while Sony did not directly mention tariffs in its decision, their "knock-on effect" could have an impact on pricing worldwide. "The US is the biggest market for video game consoles, and rather than simply increase prices there, it's possible the likes of PlayStation could increase pricing globally in an effort to protect, as best they can, the US market," he told the BBC. "Ultimately, the era when game consoles went down in price over time is certainly over." The price increase comes as Nintendo's launch of its rival Switch 2 console was marred by the impact of US tariffs on markets worldwide.

LG has rolled out its Gram laptop lineup in advance of CES 2025, confirming Intel's debut of the Arrow Lake platform in laptops and offering a mix of AI software that can run either locally or in the cloud. LG disclosed two versions of the LG Gram Pro (the 17Z90TR and 16Z90TS), as well as the LG gram Pro 2-in-1. LG is adding a new entry to its lineup as well: the Gram Book, an entry-level lightweight PC with a 1080p display and a cheaper price tag to boot. However, LG isn't saying what that price tag will be, or when these new devices will ship. LG's two new Gram Pros offer the choice of either integrated or discrete graphics.

Twenty-four years ago, the surgeon Santiago Horgan performed the first robotically assisted gastric-bypass surgery in the world, a major medical breakthrough. Now Horgan is working with a new tool that he argues could be even more transformative in operating rooms: the Apple Vision Pro. Over the last month, Horgan and other surgeons at the University of California, San Diego have performed more than 20 minimally invasive operations while wearing Apple's mixed-reality headsets. Apple released the headsets to the public in February, and they've largely been a commercial flop. But practitioners in some industries, including architecture and medicine, have been testing how they might serve particular needs.

Nvidia has unveiled a "superchip" for training artificial intelligence models, the most powerful it has ever produced. The US computing firm, which has recently rocketed in value to become the world's third-largest company, has not yet revealed the cost of its new chips, but observers expect a high price tag that will make them accessible to only a few organisations. The chips were announced by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at a press conference in San Jose, California on 18 March. He showed off the company's new Blackwell B200 graphics processing units (GPUs), each of which has 208 billion transistors – the tiny switches at the heart of modern computing devices – compared to the 80 billion transistors of Nvidia's current-generation Hopper chips. He also revealed the GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchip, which combines two of the B200 chips.

The best part about CES 2024 has been all of the cool product announcements. Many of these products are early in development, so not available for purchase. Some, however, are already on store shelves, allowing tech-crazed consumers to see what all the fuss is about. Here are some of the niftier items displayed at this year's CES that are ready, willing and able to empty your bank account. These products range from cool smartphone accessories to gaming laptops and some items that simply defy description.

Whether it's too tough, burnt to a crisp or just dripping in fat, cooking steak on the outside grill rarely does the cut of meat justice. Thankfully, a British firm has created an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered grill that it claims makes a perfect steak in just 90 seconds under controlled conditions. Perfecta, from Birmingham-based firm Seergrills, cooks the meat as it's held in place vertically, like a piece of bread in a toaster, with ultra-hot grills on either side. It has AI-powered software called NeuralFire, which relies on data gathered from sensors inside the machine and cooking preferences inputted by the user. However, if you want to get hold of one you'd better start saving - the device has an eye-watering $3,500 price tag.