Technology

It's typical, you wait for ages for a home energy revolution and then two come along at once — or at least that's what appears to be happening in the UK.

You've probably heard about the first landmark moment. 'Plug-in solar' hit the headlines last week when the UK government announced that small, solar panel kits that feed electricity directly into your standard home socket can legally go on sale from August 27.

That's a big deal. Plug-in solar means that millions of people who have traditionally been locked out of generating their own clean electricity — renters and flat owners, for example — will be able to join the residential solar party, albeit on a more modest scale.

But not everyone was celebrating wildly with biodegradable confetti. Across the country, energy nerds bemoaned one glaring omission in the government's new legislation — a legal pathway for 'plug-in batteries'.

I think in the next couple of years we will see plug-in batteries really be the transformational scale deployment.

Alex Schoch, Group Director for Flexibility at Octopus Energy

For many, these small home batteries — think a mini Tesla Powerwall that plugs into a standard wall socket — are the "real game-changer", as Octopus Energy and Anker both described them to me. That's because they promise to be even more accessible than plug-in solar and act as a money-saving brain that makes your home an active part of a smarter UK electricity grid.

Bold claims indeed, so I spoke to four of the biggest players in this burgeoning space — Anker, Octopus Energy, EcoFlow and Windfall Energy — along with the UK government to find out when plug-in batteries might be coming, what the drawbacks are and, most importantly, how much you can really expect to save...

When are they coming?

(Image credit: Windfall Energy)

The main premise of plug-in home batteries, like the Windfall Battery above, is simple — they charge automatically using cheap-rate electricity (usually at night), then discharge that electricity around your home during more expensive peak-rate periods. "Even without solar panels, a plug-in battery delivers meaningful savings through grid arbitrage alone," Anker Solix's EU CEO, Kelvin Cao, tells me. Savings estimates range from between £100-£400 per year, depending on your battery, tariff and usage.

Great, so when exactly will they become legal in the UK? When I asked the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), the official answer was predictably vague. "We are rolling out plug-in solar, which will be quickest to reach the market — helping to bring bills down for good," a DESNZ spokesperson said.

What is a plug-in battery?

(Image credit: Windfall Energy)

Plug-in batteries are smart energy storage devices that connect to your home's electrical network through a standard wall socket, without any professional installation. They automatically charge from the grid when electricity is cheap and release energy back into your home during peak-rate hours to cut your energy bills. They can work on their own or alongside solar. While they're not currently legal in the UK, that could potentially change soon.

The DESNZ told me its main focus right now is plug-in solar kits and that plug-in batteries have their own technical and regulatory hurdles, which it's currently investigating. Still, there are hopes that grid-connected batteries that plug into your wall socket could be legalised within the next year.

Several big players are quietly preparing plug-in batteries — which are already available in countries like Germany — for a UK launch. Anker, for example, has built a page for its Solix Solarbank 4 that clearly explains the benefits of plug-in batteries, should they become legalised in the UK. "We are eager to support the rise of the plug-in era in the UK and become part of its evolving energy landscape," Anker Solix's EU CEO, Kelvin Cao, told me.

Octopus Energy also recently announced that its new plug-in Nook Cube battery will go on sale sometime in 2027. More confident on the timescale is Windfall Energy, a London startup that's designed the best-looking piece of home energy kit I've seen for a while, the Windfall Battery.

"I was at a roundtable with a Minister of Parliament about a month ago, and everyone there was pretty much calling for batteries to come hot on the heels of plug-in solar," Windfall Energy's co-founder Rob Hallifax told me.

So when is Windfall expecting to start selling its 2.5 kWh home battery, which has an RRP of £1,200 and had previously been slated to ship in autumn? "Winter is more likely now. We want to time it with the plug-in regulations. It’s looking like the end of this year, early next," he added.

Why now?

(Image credit: House of Commons Library)

You'll probably have noticed that the UK has been on an energy rollercoaster that can technically be described as 'not fun'.

Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, inflation-adjusted gas and electricity prices were actually stable or even falling. But there was a huge spike for both in early 2022 and they've never returned to pre-energy crisis levels. Electricity prices are still 13% higher than in January 2020, according to the UK government, and they continue to move in the wrong direction.

It is not merely an additional product, but the step from producing electricity to actively managing it.

Kelvin Cao, Anker SOLIX EU CEO

Plug-in batteries promise to be, if not a cure, then at least a much-needed pain killer for our energy bills headache. They're emerging now because of three things — falling prices for lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries, the easing of electrical regulations in some regions (Germany created the world's first dedicated plug-in solar product standard in late 2025), and soaring wholesale gas prices that are reflected in the graph above.

As Anker's Kelvin Cao tells me, this has "reshaped how European households think about electricity". Unfortunately, that double-digit increase in energy prices is also "unlikely to come down any time soon". That's why Germany started the trend, and the UK is (hopefully) about to follow.

(Image credit: Anker)

So how exactly do plug-in batteries save you money? "There’s two parts to the price saving," Windfall Energy's co-founder Rob Hallifax tells me. "The simple one is just the price arbitrage. So if you're paying 10p at night and 30p in the day for electricity per kilowatt hour, then you buy it at 10p, use it when it's 30p, you're saving 20p per kilowatt hour," he says.

That part's pretty simple — with the Windfall Battery, this 'buy low, use when prices skyrocket' approach makes up about £168 of its promised £250 per year savings. But there are also extra savings from getting your plug-in battery really singing in tune with the electricity network.

I think it could be bigger than solar because it’s just so easy.

Rob Hallifax, Windfall Energy co-founder

The UK grid acts a bit like a giant smart thermostat, signaling when the system needs more or less electricity, and the idea is that energy suppliers could follow by telling plug-in home batteries when to charge and discharge. Smaller plug-in batteries would likely be capped at an 800W output (without professional installation), so wouldn't be exporting power to the grid. But they could still play a role in balancing demand.

This makes tariffs the second big factor in the money-saving potential of plug-in batteries — and that's something Octopus Energy has been a UK leader in.

(Image credit: Octopus Energy)

"The energy sector overall has not really embraced the fact that you can just offer different types of products to different types of consumer customer groups," Alex Schoch, Group Director for Flexibility at Octopus Energy, tells me. "Of our eight million customers, 1.2 million are on some kind of smart tariff," he adds.

Octopus Energy told me there could potentially be dedicated plug-in battery tariffs or bolt-ons for existing ones. If you've ever been baffled by choosing the right energy tariff, this could also get simpler thanks to plug-in batteries.

"I equate it to the evolution of mobile phone plans," Octopus Energy's Alex Schoch tells me. "First, they were incredibly generic. Then they got so complicated that Carphone Warehouse came into being just to explain the complexity. And now we’re at a stage where we create hyper-personalised plans based on your needs as a consumer. We’re on that same journey when it comes to energy".

But doesn't this also demand a lot of trust in energy companies? Windfall Energy's Rob Hallifax agrees, but thinks falling bills will ultimately convince consumers. "It's their (consumers'] battery, they're in control of it, but the energy company is controlling it a bit to help them maximize the savings," he says. "The consumer has to trust that the energy company is doing this to save them money, and I think that will come when they see their bills go down," he adds.

What's the catch?

(Image credit: EcoFlow)

Clearly, plug-in batteries won't be a magic wand for everyone's bills, even if the batteries could be subsidised or even given away for free by the UK government to lower-income households, as the i Paper reported recently (the DESNZ declined to comment on this when I asked).

For most plug-in batteries, the payback period (the time it takes for savings to cover the cost of the battery) is expected to be around 3-4 for years, so not exactly a financial quick fix. The Windfall Battery promises annual savings of £250 (with an RRP of £1,200), while Anker tells me that the larger Solix Solarbank 4 on a dynamic tariff like Octopus Agile could save you just under £400 per year. That battery has no UK price yet, but retails for €1,999 in Europe (around £1,700).

The other concern raised by skeptics is safety. Is allowing potentially millions of households to connect batteries to their electricity networks without professional installation really a good idea? Windfall Energy's Rob Hallifax acknowledges that it's an understandable concern. "People see a battery, and they think of scooters and fires, and there some valid concerns. Obviously, safety is critically important, and just one battery fire would be one too many," he says.

The vast majority of households own a refrigerator to store groceries and extend the shelf life of perishable food. Battery storage brings the same benefits to household energy.

Kelvin Cao, Anker SOLIX EU CEO

"But modern batteries are generally extremely safe,' he adds. "There are some studies out of Germany now where they compare batteries to EVs and other home appliances. One headline is that they’re typically about as safe as a washing machine," he adds. The other common comparison is with fan heaters, which are legal in the UK but carry a higher risk of 'user error' incidents than plug-in batteries.

Still, the added complexities of grid-charging batteries mean some agree with the UK government's top-dipping approach. EcoFlow, one of the biggest global players in home batteries, is among them. "We're aware and completely understand that these things take time," Lorna Wallace-Smith (EcoFlow's Head of UK PR) told me. "The fact that they were able to move forward with at least one step is is great" she added.

But hasn't Germany's rapid adoption of both plug-in solar and home batteries shown it's safe? "I think that's something we should learn from, as well as not fast-track into something without knowing it's absolutely built for UK homes," she added.

Could they outshine solar?

(Image credit: Windfall Energy)

Despite these concerns, it seems clear that plug-in batteries have the potential to eclipse the more complex plug-in solar kits in the UK — and most of the experts I spoke to agreed.

"They are the fundamental great equalizer," says Octopus' Alex Schoch on plug-in batteries. "It’s such an important thing for renters because you can then take it with you to your next place," he adds.

"I think in the next couple of years we will see plug-in batteries really be the transformational scale deployment. I think it has the potential of being a mass market thing even faster than solar," he predicts.

Windfall Energy's Rob Hallifax naturally agrees when comparing plug-in batteries to their solar equivalent. "There are 28 million homes in the UK and about half of them are either rented or flats and small homes. So more people could get them, millions, and there’s also the benefit to the grid and to the system," he says.

There is one other obvious comparison with an accessory that's cheap, easy to use and promises to save you money. "We use air fryers as quite a good example. Four or five years ago they just came from nowhere and suddenly half the country has one," he says.

But wouldn't an 'air fryer' level of popularity also cause a problem for plug-in batteries? After all, a lot of their money-saving potential comes from tapping into today's so-called 'delta' between cheap-rate and peak-rate electricity. If plug-in batteries help to solve the imbalance of today's grid demand — and tariffs are adjusted to reflect that — could that start to diminish their savings potential?

"I think yes and no," says Windfall Energy's Rob Hallifax. "So maybe in 50 years the whole grid will be sort of perfect. I think the fundamental thing is that if you have renewable generation, that's always going to be variable. That's just the nature of the world. And so somewhere in the system, storage has to be part of it," he adds.

Octopus Energy's Alex Schoch agrees that such a change would be a long way off. "In theory, yes." he says in response to my pessimistic scenario. "But I would actually say the length of time here is measured in decades, not in a sub-decade quantum," he adds.

However, he does note that a similar process is already happening. "We've had such an explosion of solar in the UK over the last few years that now during Spring and Summer, a lot of the cheapest wholesale price electricity times are actually late morning, early afternoon, mid afternoon, and no longer overnight," he notes.

Charging ahead

(Image credit: Windfall Energy)

The legalisation of plug-in batteries in the UK appears to be a matter of 'when' not 'if'. As a flat owner in south west London with no roof and only a limited appetite for plug-in solar, I'm right in the target market — and will certainly be interested when that moment comes.

But it also won't be an impulse buy where I snap up the first thing I see Amazon. "The biggest pitfall to avoid is making decision on price alone," says Anker's Kelvin Cao. "Now that plug-in solar has regulatory approval, the UK market will attract a wave of low-cost imports, some of which will be excellent and some of which will not. This will be a similar problem once the plug-in batteries are legalised," he warns.

"A battery that cuts corners on cell quality, protective engineering and compliance with applicable safety standards might look more attractive on its price tag, but it will not deliver the same reliability over the 10 to 15 years that a household should reasonably expect," he adds. In other words, buying cheap could backfire when it comes to savings.

So what exactly should you look for when plug-in batteries are legalised? "As a baseline, consumers should look for durable LFP battery cells, a high cycle life, robust protection against weather and corrosion, and integrated safeguards against electrical and thermal risks," Kelvin Cao says.

"They'll probably also say that the product must be listed on the Energy Networks Association (ENA) Type Test Register to demonstrate that its protection settings meet G98 requirements," adds Windfall Energy's Rob Hallifax.

A real-world view

(Image credit: Octopus Energy / Future)

A large number of early adopters are already getting a taste of the benefits of a battery-only setup. One of those is TechRadar contributor Mark Pickavance, who wrote our EcoFlow Stream Ultra X review (which is well worth a read).

I caught up with him to see how it's going and he continues to be impressed. He told me that his monthly energy costs are down by about £40 a month with his setup (which was installed with the help of an electrician), and you could get most of that from a single Ultra X.

The only problem is that this stuff can get addictive. "I started with the premise of using just a battery, but once you have one the logical progression is solar. However, for people renting, it's the ideal solution, and if you use an Economy 7-like tariff (Octopus Go), you can take a chunk out of your costs," he said.

The arrival of plug-in solar from August could, then, be a good dry run of what to expect when plug-in batteries arrive. The big differences between residential buildings between Germany and the UK could mean plug-in solar doesn't quite take off in the same way in the UK, but Anker's Kelvin Cao remains bullish.

"This is no longer a niche movement. Germany passed one million officially registered plug-in solar systems in 2025, with around 430,000 new systems registered during that year alone," he notes. If plug-in batteries follow a similar pattern in the UK, that could have big consequences for energy bills — and the UK's grid as a whole.

I’ve been lifting weights at home for a few years now, but recently I’ve found myself stuck in a rut. If anything, my routine has become a humdrum habit, without a clear goal and sense of progression to keep me motivated. Ten exercises, three sets, eight reps, 30 minutes. I’ve run through it so often that I could do it in my sleep.

I’m a true tech lover, so of course I got artificial intelligence (AI) to help me out. Apple has just launched its revamped Siri AI and I’ve been playing around with its early beta edition, so I was curious to know if its new skills extended to solid fitness advice — and if they did, how they held up against the ever-popular ChatGPT.

To find out, I asked each chatbot to dream up a workout routine that could revitalize my fitness habits. After working through both plans and tapping a professional personal trainer for their insights, I was left with the impression that only one of the two workout plans was worth sticking with.

The setup

(Image credit: Dean Drobot / Shutterstock)

To start with, I put together a prompt that I then fed into both AIs. The goal was to briefly explain my physical state and outline the kind of workout I was after, noting any constraints such as time and location (I work out at home).

Here’s the prompt I used:

“I am a 36-year-old man in good physical shape who exercises regularly. Create a three-day overall workout plan for me with the goals of hypertrophy and building muscle. The workout will be done in a small home office using dumbbells as the only equipment. It can include calisthenics as well as weighted exercises and should aim to cover different areas of the body. Ensure it lasts no longer than 45 minutes. Explain how often each workout session should be repeated over the course of a week and when rest days should take place, if required.”

I didn’t add any subsequent follow-up messages, as I wanted to know what each AI could come up with given the kind of information that a regular user might provide.

The new challenger: Siri AI

(Image credit: Future)

At its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June, Apple made a big song and dance of its new Siri AI virtual assistant, a new foundational model based on Google’s Gemini LLM.

When given my workout prompt, Siri AI put together a plan that included a “push” day focusing on my chest, shoulders and triceps; a “pull” day centered on my back, biceps and rear delts; then a final “legs and core” day. It offered a workout schedule and suggested that each session would take around 45 minutes, with three sets of 8-12 reps and a rest of 60-90 seconds between each set.

“Focus on controlled movements and progressive overload by gradually increasing the weight of your dumbbells or the difficulty of your calisthenics,” it advised. Each exercise was accompanied by a short explanation of how to perform it, which was a welcome touch.

Putting Siri’s action plan into practice, it was obvious that my old self-made workout plan wasn't pushing me hard enough, as the first day’s workout left me feeling like I’d worked harder than I had for months. Off to a good start, I thought.

(Image credit: Future)

But Siri’s plan came up well short of 45 minutes, with most days’ efforts lasting a mere 25 minutes. And aside from the lack of warm up, there was also no word on how to complement the exercises with targeted nutritional intake. That’s a serious oversight in its workout regimen, especially for beginners.

To help me better understand the plans from both Siri AI and ChatGPT, I asked personal trainer and fitness coach Scott Laidler for his opinion. Speaking of Siri’s effort, Laidler said that it had a few things going for it.

“Siri’s is simple which means there is little to misinterpret,” said Laidler, adding that “the equipment substitutions are sensible for the office environment.”

While Siri recommends upping the weight as you get stronger, it doesn’t say “what to do once this plan hits diminishing returns, which is months away, not years,” according to Laidler. While it sounds like an open-ended plan, “it’s really only built for a defined window,” Laidler warned, which could “lead to frustration unless you knew to come back to the table and ask for a new plan several times per year.”

That’s a problem inherent in the responses from both Siri and ChatGPT.

The class leader: ChatGPT

(Image credit: Future)

While Siri AI’s workout plan was concise, ChatGPT was much longer. It explained what the priorities of the workout were and gave some basic advice, such as aiming to finish with one or two reps in reserve as a guidance on how much weight to use. It then listed a weekly schedule before laying out a simple warm up to perform each session.

Each exercise was listed, with varying numbers of sets and reps, followed by a note on which muscle groups were being targeted. Unlike Siri, there was no explanation of how to perform each exercise, which feels like an oversight with potential for injury. That was a clear win for Siri AI.

At the end, ChatGPT included a “progression” section explaining how to push yourself further, a guide on recovery and nutritional intake, then an explanation of “why this split works.” Taken together, it was a detailed workout plan, if a rather verbose one.

(Image credit: Future)

According to Laidler, ChatGPT’s plan was “the better program by some margin.” Siri “applies a flat ‘three sets of 8-12’ to every exercise, with each muscle group trained once a week,” Laidler noted. ChatGPT, on the other hand, “hits most muscle groups twice across the week, varies the sets per exercise, includes a warm up, and gives real progression logic. On paper it’s the more sophisticated plan.”

ChatGPT “is closer to what the literature would see as optimal for the stated goal of gaining muscle,” Laidler stated. “Reps in reserve (RIR) offers a way for the user to keep a reasonable distance from failure, which de-risks the plan especially when training alone.”

OpenAI’s LLM has a trick up its sleeve, too: it can analyze your form based on uploaded videos. I asked it to judge my Romanian deadlift form and it gave me an 8.5 out of ten, giving pointers on what I did well and what could be improved. I wouldn’t take this advice over that of a human expert, but compared to Siri AI — which can’t do any of this at all — it’s another point to ChatGPT.

The overall picture

(Image credit: LStockStudio/Shutterstock)

Despite their individual strengths, Laidler warned that neither Siri AI nor ChatGPT had created an optimal workout plan. As he pointed out, “It doesn’t appear that the LLM has asked follow up questions that may have helped customize the plan a little more.”

This highlights a problem with using AI for personal fitness. While a personal trainer would naturally ask these questions straight away, an AI chatbot won’t necessarily propose them unless prompted. Without a more detailed knowledge of your personal situation, you could end up with a sub-par workout routine that’s not well-suited to your circumstances.

So, if you’re going to use AI to sketch out a fitness plan, make sure to add as much detail in your prompt as possible. Ask it to pose follow-up questions to ensure it has as all the information it needs, and come back to it regularly. Don’t just stick to the plan it gives you and repeat it ad infinitum or you’ll end up like I did: languishing, with your progress grinding to a frustrating halt.

Of course, as Laidler pointed out, the problem with doing this — telling the LLM your injury history, what feels like a hard set, your workout preferences, and more — means that “you need to already know what a well-built program looks like to comprehensively prompt for one.” And if that’s the case, do you even need an AI to help you in the first place?

If you do want to go ahead with an AI fitness coach, ChatGPT is a better bet than Siri AI for now, as it includes more varied sets and targets more muscle groups. Neither is perfect, but Apple has plenty of work to do if it wants to match ChatGPT’s take on fitness advice.

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Aug. 1, 2026.

• It's a full Dolby Atmos mixing studio... in a shed
• Designed to deliver accurate Atmos audio with pin-sharp precision
• Artists are delighted with the mixes, which required no tweaks

If like me you used to have, or still have, a backyard office or shed for working in, you're going to be green with envy at the sight of mixing maestro Kurt Martinez's personal Dolby Atmos studio.

The award-nominated Atmos expert designed and built his own backyard office and filled it with enviable gear, and if he doesn't call it his Spatial shed I'm going to be very disappointed.

Martinez has been nominated for the prestigious Music Producers Guild award as Atmos Engineer of the Year, and he spent three years as the Head Dolby Atmos Mix Engineer at the world-famous Dean Street studios. He's worked on live and recorded music by a host of stars including Kylie Minogue, Def Leppard, Soft Play, Billy Idol and Duran Duran.

Like many freelancers, Martinez figured that having a home office was a much better idea than a long commute into the city, and in Martinez's case that decision was compounded by being a new dad. So he built an entire Atmos mixing studio in his back garden, doing everything himself apart from the electrics and internet connectivity.

(Image credit: Kurt Martinez)How to make a spatial shed

As Mixonline reports, Martinez built the 2.5m x 3.5m garden office with a combination of porous timber walls to absorb the low frequencies, acoustic panelling in the ceiling and sides, a large rear bookshelf for dispersion, and acoustic slat panels at the front. There's thick acoustic underlay below the laminate floor and even the furniture has a function: the armchairs and rug are there to absorb audio reflections.

With the building ready, the next step was to add the tech. Martinez uses a Pro Tools system based around an Audient ORIA, which sends audio to a Ginger Audio Ground Control Sphere that's controlled by an Elgato Stream Deck+.

The speakers are striking. They're PMC6-2 left and right monitors, a PMC6 center speaker, an 8 Sub LFE, and Ci30 height and surround monitors. Final mixes are tested on AirPods Max and a Sonos home theater setup to check that still sounds good on consumer Atmos hardware as well a studio-level setup.

I used to have a very similar-looking setup for my own home studio, but sadly I didn't have Martinez's high-end gear or even more importantly, Martinez's ears, which is why nobody's nominating me for anything.

But I do love to see a good audio project, and it's clearly been very successful: according to ETNow.com Martinez's last five full-length records, which he mixed in that studio, required no tweaking at all when he tested them in large commercial studios.

All five of those records have been signed off by their delighted artists. I'd like to think that one of them was Shed Seven.

• Zelensky says Ukraine's drones will soon fly far enough to hit anywhere in Russia
• Kyiv and Washington quietly push forward a plan to build drones on US soil
• Ukraine's drone range could jump to 10,000 km, but engineers still face big hurdles

In a recent interview with American conservative commentator Laura Loomer, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that Ukrainian drones should exceed 4,000 km in range in 2026.

The Ukrainian leader added that long-range drones could achieve distances between 5,000 km and 10,000 km, or about 6,000 miles, by 2027.

Such a capability would theoretically allow a drone to cover Russia’s entire territory and reach distances comparable to the route between Kyiv and San Francisco.

Ukraine plans expanded drone cooperation with the United States

The projected increase in range forms part of Kyiv’s efforts to expand drone production through cooperation with Washington and possible manufacturing facilities inside America.

The discussions include joint production, technology exchanges, testing arrangements, and the development of production lines for advanced unmanned systems.

Ukraine has gained extensive experience with aerial drones, naval drones, and deep-strike platforms in its ongoing war with Russia.

Those battlefield developments have become central to discussions about future cooperation, as Kyiv seeks wider access to industrial capacity and advanced manufacturing resources.

The first stage of agreements between Ukraine and the United States has already been completed, while further documents remain under preparation.

"We're going to build a great factory," Zelensky said, describing plans for production lines that could support future drone manufacturing.

Both parties have already signed documents allowing various Ukrainian drone systems to undergo testing in the United States.

Those arrangements involve aerial drones, sea-based systems, and other high-technology products before any broader production agreement receives final approval.

Ukraine has also pursued similar defence partnerships with European countries as it attempts to expand its role in defence technology development.

Long-range drone ambitions face technical challenges

The planned range increase would require significant advances in propulsion, communications, navigation systems, and endurance capabilities before becoming operationally realistic.

Flying thousands of kilometres would create new challenges involving reliability, electronic warfare threats, satellite connectivity, and the ability to maintain accurate targeting.

Military analysts have often noted that extending drone range involves more than increasing flight distance because other systems must operate effectively.

A drone capable of travelling up to 10,000 km would require dependable control systems and protection against attempts to disrupt communications.

The development timeline could also depend on access to funding, manufacturing capacity, and successful testing under demanding operational conditions.

While Ukraine has rapidly expanded its unmanned capabilities during the war, achieving the announced range goals would require continued technological progress.

The proposed timeline shows Kyiv’s ambition to develop longer-range strike capabilities, although the final performance of such systems remains dependent on future development outcomes.

Via NV

You could be forgiven for thinking that most wearable-tech categories have come as far as they're ever going to. All smartwatches look the same now, and that form factor isn’t going away anytime soon. It's a similar story with smart rings, with “slightly thinner” being the main selling point of the Oura Ring 5. And the screenless Whoop tracker has given birth to a bunch of copycats, including the Fitbit Air, and most recently the Garmin Cirqa.

When you think of wearable tech, you normally think of some sort of fitness tracker. But there is an area of wearables that’s still in flux, as categories do before there’s a consensus on what works: neurotech. Neurotech devices are generally wearable technology to monitor, or temporarily alter, our brain chemistry for optimal performance or to treat neurological injuries, such as post-traumatic stress disorder or depression.

They’re also being used to improve our brains to rest harder and focus longer. Our writer Becca Caddy recently wrote about the dangerously addictive thrills of 'over-optimization', so it’s no surprise to see the out-there concept of rewiring the brain being embraced by the cult of biohacking.

(Image credit: Neurosity)

Nootropics — mind-enhancing drugs — are promoted heavily on podcasts, with brands like Gorilla Mind and Alpha Brain enjoying airtime on popular ‘bro-science’ platforms like The Joe Rogan Experience to help get ‘cognitively dialed’. Away from pharmacological solutions, multi-millionaire longevity biohacker Bryan Johnson uses Nurosym, an electrical vagus nerve stimulation device, to “make [his] body more parasympathetic, more chill”.

It’s Nurosym that I’ve been using this week. There are other wearables out there that promise to do all sorts of things — the Neurosity Crown for example (pictured above), promises to improve concentration through “neuroadaptive meditation”, measuring your brainwaves and playing music to that pattern to improve focus during work. All while looking like the sort of thing you might see Patrick Stewart wear in the X-Men films.

The Muse 2 headband is a meditation aid that uses electroencephalography (EEG) sensors to read your brain activity and provide personalized meditation guidance, in much the same way as a smartwatch might read your heart rate and offer workout suggestions.

The vagus nerve, however, is a key target for brain health. Proper stimulation of the vagus nerve is said to offer all sorts of benefits, treating conditions as varied as depression, anxiety, inflammation, bipolar disorder, obesity, POTS, and Alzheimer's. For people without those conditions, vagus nerve stimulation can improve sleep quality, regulate stress and improve relaxation overall, ensuring you're well-rested and ready to tackle life's challenges.

There's unconfirmed but promising research suggesting that you may be able to stimulate the vagus nerve yourself through practices such as meditation and cold exposure — which might explain my predilection for cold showers, as perhaps I’ve been unconsciously hacking away at my brain all this time.

But what if I got a wearable to do it for me? I decided to try Nurosym myself for a week, to see if I could really begin to hack my brain better.

The vagus nerve stimulation device costs a whopping $699 / £599 (around AU$1,300), and looks quite stripped-back for a device of this price. It consists of a fairly simple handheld remote, an attached earpiece with a clamp to fix to your tragus (the small piece of cartilage outside your ear) and a charging cable. There’s mercifully no app or phone connection to speak of; everything happens on-device, which actually goes some way to making me trust it more, as it’s not collecting any data about me.

(Image credit: Future)

“For a long time, neuromodulation has largely meant invasive procedures or treatment delivered in specialist environments,” Dr Greta Dalle Luche, PhD., Nurosym’s head of science, tells me. “Nurosym demonstrates how this science can be translated into non-invasive technology that fits into people’s everyday lives.”

As well as being a doctor in biochemistry, Dalle Luche is also a former professional surfer, so she knows all about optimizing for peak performance. She explains that Nurosym is all about taking “evidence-led neuromodulation” out of the clinical space and turning it into accessible technology. A lot of clinical tests have been done on this device, and it’s advertised as “the world’s most studied vagus nerve stimulator” with $10 million invested in over 60 independent research papers, backed by notable universities and health bodies worldwide.

To use it, you moisten your tragus, fix the clamp, then adjust the signal on the remote — turning it up until you feel a light tingling sensation. That’s the electricity pulsing through your ear to your vagus nerve, stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system to activate your body’s “rest and digest” response.

It seems like as good a place as any to start. I wet my ear, clamped it onto myself and sat quietly, letting the tingles of electricity wash down my ear canal and into my brain. Nurosym guidelines, and reports on the r/vagusnerve subreddit (because of course there’s a subreddit), suggest that it can take anything from a few days to months to feel the effects, which are said to include a reduction in depressive or anxiety-related symptoms, better sleep, and better-quality rest and relaxation. These claims are anecdotal, and user-dependent, and the results are subjective, with no objective measure of they actually work or produce meaningful results, certainly in a short amount of time such as a week.

Dalle Luche tells me that “factors such as an individual’s underlying vagal tone, or in other words, the ‘health of their autonomic nervous system,’ influence the proportion of the response to the device". So it's possible that I may end up not having a proportional, or significant, response.

(Image credit: Future)

Nonetheless, I did my best to empirically measure my body’s responses to this new technology, monitoring my sessions on a Garmin Cirqa fitness tracker as if it was a workout, and wearing it to bed nightly to monitor sleep quality and heart-rate variability.

You can watch our video review of the Garmin Cirqa below:

According to the Garmin, the stimulation did have some effect. There could be any number of contributing factors for this, but after spending 15 minutes at rest to settle my heart, I fired up the Nurosym and monitored my heart rate over a 25-minute session, and I did see a decrease in spikes my heart rate as the session went on. Note the regularity in the middle there, too, between the 10 and 17-minute marks — a clear indication that something was working.

(Image credit: Future)

Across the week while using the device, I also saw a general improvement in sleep quality and drastically rising heart-rate variability, as measured here via my Garmin. I’m not sure I saw any immediate, dramatic improvement in focus or relaxation, but the graphs were moving in the right direction.

Whether this is partly due to the sessions enforcing at least 30 minutes of screenless, conscious relaxation time each day, so that my nervous system was deliberately being calmed, or whether it’s due to the device, I’m not sure. But I’ll take the W, as the kids say.

(Image credit: Future)

For $700 / £600 / AU$1,300, is 'seemed to work' enough? When I asked about the high price of the device, Nurosym’s head of science Dr Greta Dalle Luche said its price does not reflect the physical device alone.

“It reflects more than a decade of scientific research and development, our proprietary technology, extensive continuous testing to ensure safety and maintenance of regulatory certification, as well as continued investment in clinical research,” she told me. “That makes a direct product-for-product comparison with lower-cost non-validated wellness gadgets difficult.

“When people buy Nurosym, they have the certainty of holding in their hands something that works, and that comes with very little risk.”

While the results have been inconclusive so far, I've seen enough to suggest that something is happening here, so I'll continue electrocuting my brain for a while yet to see if I achieve more definitive results. Wearable neurotechnology is still in its infancy, but it’s a technology that's on the rise, and I imagine, now that Nurosym has done the hard work of all that proprietary testing, there will be more low-strength vagus nerve-stimulation devices hitting the market in the near future.

I’m interested in seeing where the category goes. If companies like Nurosym can bring down prices, and make the technology more accessible, a wearable that improves your quality of relaxation — and which doesn’t harvest your data to feed big tech via an AI-powered app — sounds like a win in my book.

• Reusable bomber drones join the Pentagon's Drone Dominance Program
• Payloads must exceed 8 kilograms, matching existing mortar rounds already available
• Drones must operate 15 to 30 kilometers from their launch positions

The Pentagon has expanded its Drone Dominance Program by seeking reusable unmanned aircraft capable of carrying bombs instead of functioning solely as one-way attack systems.

Unlike traditional strategic bombers, these aircraft are expected to carry payloads exceeding 8 kg (about 18 lb), placing these aircraft in a very different category from long-range bombers such as the B-52.

According to a new Request for Solutions, the Defence Department is seeking man-packable or light combat vehicle transportable drones capable of operating between 15 km and 30 km from their launch positions.

Small reusable bombers instead of strategic aircraft

Officials expect most candidate systems to weigh no more than 55 lb at gross take-off weight, excluding payload, making them substantially smaller than conventional military bombers.

The required payload exceeds 8 kg and should accommodate mortar rounds or similar munitions already available within existing military inventories.

Rather than releasing a single weapon before returning home, the aircraft should carry multiple warheads capable of engaging several moving or stationary.

Potential objectives include enemy personnel, light armoured vehicles, heavy armour, maritime surface craft, landing vessels, and additional battlefield assets requiring precision engagement.

The Pentagon also requires these systems to remain operational during adverse weather, varying lighting conditions, and attempts to disrupt communications or satellite navigation through electronic jamming.

Officials also want advanced automation integrated into the aircraft, including autonomous functions and automated target recognition intended to reduce operator workload during combat missions.

"Vendors shall demonstrate targeting capabilities designed to improve engagement effectiveness, increase delivery accuracy, and reduce operation cognitive workload during target prosecution," the solicitation states.

Testing will include engagements involving stationary and moving drones, as well as stationary and moving objectives, across different operating heights.

Prototype competition will determine larger future purchases

The Pentagon expects reusable bomber drones to deliver greater reliability than manually piloted first-person-view aircraft. They will be designed for repeated combat operations instead of single-use attacks.

"Systems with advanced features are expected to achieve better results than simple first-person view (FPV) drones that are manual and rely on continuous operator input," the solicitation adds.

The department also said reusable platforms should provide higher reliability and capability than one-way attack systems because they are expected to survive multiple missions.

Manufacturers that complete the initial qualification stage will advance to a competitive evaluation known as the Gauntlet, scheduled for October, in which military personnel will assess complete operational systems.

Evaluators will examine aircraft performance together with payload release mechanisms, ground control equipment, and supporting hardware before determining which companies receive prototype awards.

Following those assessments, the Pentagon plans approximately $32 million in initial prototype contracts covering as many as 1,200 drone systems together with associated logistics packages.

The prototypes will be delivered within five months after receiving an order, while half of the requested systems must arrive within two-and-a-half months.

Via Defense Scoop

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle No. 677 for Saturday, Aug. 1.

As of August 2026, there are 43 free cloud storage providers offering a combined capacity of almost 1.54TB.

The majority of these providers are based in Europe and offer capacities ranging from a few hundred MB to a staggering 1.02 TB.

Terabox exceeds the capacity of most paid cloud storage services but has some serious restrictions (but then again, 1TB...).

Against all odds, there are more free cloud storage providers than three years ago. This is bucking a trend (free web hosting services numbers are going down) and is in spite of more intense competition from hyperscalers (including Facebook) as well as increasing operational costs (hello Ram-geddon).

Over the past five years, dozens of cloud storage companies have either given up on free cloud storage (e.g Samsung, Amazon and Ionos) or closed shop altogether (e.g. Flipdrive, Ganso).

What you may end up needing is a cloud storage management service to aggregate all your cloud storage, presenting you with a unified interface. You won’t find any free ones as bandwidth is costly, which explains why a few services listed here have bandwidth restrictions (Icedrive, for example, has a 3GB per day limit).

For this article, we’ve selected free cloud storage providers that do offer totally free unrestricted access to their services: so no trial e.g. try free for 90 days.

Want to take the pain out of cloud storage?

For those who want to pay a bit extra. IDrive, the cloud storage veteran, delivers tons of storage online for an incredibly small outlay. 10TB for $4.98 for the first year is unmatched till now and so is the support for unlimited devices and the extensive file versioning system available.View Deal

How much do you spend on your cloud storage provider? Either as a standalone service or part of a bundle. Be it Google, Microsoft, Apple or someone else?

All free cloud storage providers

Partner

Location

Free Cloud storage

Terabox

CN

1024GB

Playbook

US

100GB

Blomp

US

40GB

Bacloud

EU

32GB

Degoo

EU

30GB

Drime

EU

20GB

Mega

AU

20GB

Mobidrive

US

20GB

Digiboxx

IN

20GB

Shadowdrive

EU

20GB

Infinicloud

JP

20GB

KDrive

EU

15GB

Google Drive

US

15GB

Idrive

US

10GB

Box

US

10GB

pCloud

EU

10GB

Mediafire

US

10GB

IceDrive

EU

10GB

Koofr

EU

10GB

Filen

EU

10GB

Hivenet

EU

10GB

Backlaze

US

10GB

Jumpshare

US

6.25GB

Proton Drive

EU

5GB

PowerFolder

EU

5GB

OneDrive

US

5GB

iCloud

US

5GB

DriveHQ

US

5GB

Sync

US

5GB

OpenDrive

US

5GB

Cozy

EU

5GB

Jottacloud

EU

5GB

Zoho WorkDrive

US

5GB

Nordlocker

EU

3GB

Tresorit

EU

3GB

Cloudme

EU

3GB

DropBox

US

2GB

GMX

EU

2GB

Owndrive

EU

1GB

Woekli

EU

1GB

Internxt

EU

1GB

Zotero

EU

0.3GB

Bublup

EU

0.25GB

Looking for a different day?

A new Quordle puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Friday's puzzle instead then click here: Quordle hints and answers for Friday, July 31 (game #1649).

Quordle was one of the original Wordle alternatives and is still going strong now more than 1,500 games later. It offers a genuine challenge, though, so read on if you need some Quordle hints today — or scroll down further for the answers.

Enjoy playing word games? You can also check out my NYT Connections today and NYT Strands today pages for hints and answers for those puzzles, while Marc's Wordle today column covers the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about Quordle today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

Quordle today (game #1650) — hint #1 — VowelsHow many different vowels are in Quordle today?

• The number of different vowels in Quordle today is 4*.

* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).

Quordle today (game #1650) — hint #2 — repeated lettersDo any of today's Quordle answers contain repeated letters?

• The number of Quordle answers containing a repeated letter today is 1.

Quordle today (game #1650) — hint #3 — uncommon lettersDo the letters Q, Z, X or J appear in Quordle today?

• No. None of Q, Z, X or J appear among today's Quordle answers.

Quordle today (game #1650) — hint #4 — starting letters (1)Do any of today's Quordle puzzles start with the same letter?

• The number of today's Quordle answers starting with the same letter is 0.

If you just want to know the answers at this stage, simply scroll down. If you're not ready yet then here's one more clue to make things a lot easier:

Quordle today (game #1650) — hint #5 — starting letters (2)What letters do today's Quordle answers start with?

• O

• B

• S

• E

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

Quordle today (game #1650) — the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle, game #1650, are…

• OMEGA
• BIRCH
• SMOCK
• EERIE

There were a couple of really tricky words in this game.

Fortunately, I couldn’t think of anything that ended in R-I-E apart from EERIE and then after deciding the final word must begin O-M there was only one possible word it could be.

Daily Sequence today (game #1650) — the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1650, are…

• WINCE
• BRAKE
• COMET
• WORST

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #1649, Friday, 31 July: MANIA, SINGE, STOOL, LOFTY
• Quordle #1648, Thursday, 30 July: MODAL, IDLER, CHUMP, LUMPY
• Quordle #1647, Wednesday, 29 July: GAWKY, ALLOY, AUDIT, LATCH
• Quordle #1646, Tuesday, 28 July: SMITE, ROACH, RUDDY, GLOBE
• Quordle #1645, Monday, 27 July: TAFFY, FIGHT, GUILD, WAGER
• Quordle #1644, Sunday, 26 July: STOMP, LIMIT, FUNKY, STEAD
• Quordle #1643, Saturday, 25 July: SALON, SHEEN, BURST, GOURD
• Quordle #1642, Friday, 24 July: DOLLY, EDIFY, LAGER, PRANK
• Quordle #1641, Thursday, 23 July: LADEN, EVICT, WOVEN, SHIRE
• Quordle #1640, Wednesday, 22 July: COYLY, SINGE, AWASH, AWOKE
• Quordle #1639, Tuesday, 21 July: TRUSS, AXIAL, SWINE, THING
• Quordle #1638, Monday, 20 July: ICING, SLICK, GAILY, RISEN
• Quordle #1637, Sunday, 19 July: SPURT, ACRID, THRUM, BLEEP
• Quordle #1636, Saturday, 18 July: KNAVE, TIGHT, BLEAT, CHAOS
• Quordle #1635, Friday, 17 July: CUMIN, PALER, GRASS, INBOX
• Quordle #1634, Thursday, 16 July: IGLOO, PLAIT, YEAST, AROMA
• Quordle #1633, Wednesday, 15 July: PROXY, BRICK, BROTH, SURGE
• Quordle #1632, Tuesday, 14 July: EBONY, AVOID, RODEO, CUTIE
• Quordle #1631, Monday, 13 July: VOICE, BISON, BURNT, BUILT
• Quordle #1630, Sunday, 12 July: STAIN, BINGO, LARVA, DICEY

Looking for a different day?

A new NYT Connections puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Friday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Connections hints and answers for Friday, July 31 (game #1146).

Good morning! Let's play Connections, the NYT's clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need Connections hints.

What should you do once you've finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I've also got daily Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too, while Marc's Wordle today page covers the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Connections today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Connections today (game #1147) - today's words

(Image credit: New York Times)

Today's NYT Connections words are…

• WALTZ
• LOAFER
• SHAM
• BORE
• REAM
• BOULEVARD
• SHEET
• BALE
• THROW
• BUNDLE
• JORDAN
• ROLLS-ROYCE
• PHOENIX
• DRILL
• COMFORTER
• COUNTERSINK

NYT Connections today (game #1147) - hint #1 - group hints

What are some clues for today's NYT Connections groups?

• YELLOW: Sleep under or on it
• GREEN: Movie icons
• BLUE: Make a dent in things
• PURPLE: Ready, steady, bake

Need more clues?

We're firmly in spoiler territory now, but read on if you want to know what the four theme answers are for today's NYT Connections puzzles…

NYT Connections today (game #1147) - hint #2 - group answers

What are the answers for today's NYT Connections groups?

• YELLOW: BEDDING
• GREEN: OSCAR-WINNING ACTORS SINCE 2010
• BLUE: PERFORM SOME HOLE MACHINING OPERATION
• PURPLE: STARTING WITH BREAD SHAPES

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Connections today (game #1147) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Connections, game #1147, are…

• YELLOW: BEDDING: COMFORTER, SHAM, SHEET, THROW
• GREEN: OSCAR-WINNING ACTORS SINCE 2010: BALE, JORDAN, PHOENIX, WALTZ
• BLUE: PERFORM SOME HOLE MACHINING OPERATION: S BORE, COUNTERSINK, DRILL, REAM
• PURPLE: STARTING WITH BREAD SHAPES: BOULEVARD, BUNDLE, LOAFER, ROLLS-ROYCE

• My rating: Easy
• My score: Perfect

I usually jump straight in when I have a hunch, but today I held back until I was certain.

The result was that I went through this game without any mistakes, however I also missed out on a “purple first”, as hesitancy held me back when I was feeling sure that roll, bun and loaf at the start of ROLLS-ROYCE, BUNDLE and LOAFER was no coincidence.

Alas, being unfamiliar with boule (it’s a type of French bread) meant I couldn't follow up on my half-baked theory.

Yesterday's NYT Connections answers (Friday, July 31, 2026, game #1146)

• YELLOW: CONSTRUCT: FASHION, MODEL, MOLD, SHAPE
• GREEN: SUPER MARIO FIGURES: DINOSAUR, MUSHROOM, PLUMBER, PRINCESS
• BLUE: FRUITS PLUS STARTING LETTER: DAPPLE, JDATE, SLIME, SPEAR
• PURPLE: STARTING WITH MERRIMENTS: CHEERIOS, FUNGUS, GLEEK, JOYSTICK

What is NYT Connections?

NYT Connections is one of several increasingly popular word games made by the New York Times. It challenges you to find groups of four items that share something in common, and each group has a different difficulty level: green is easy, yellow a little harder, blue often quite tough and purple usually very difficult.

On the plus side, you don't technically need to solve the final one, as you'll be able to answer that one by a process of elimination. What's more, you can make up to four mistakes, which gives you a little bit of breathing room.

It's a little more involved than something like Wordle, however, and there are plenty of opportunities for the game to trip you up with tricks. For instance, watch out for homophones and other word games that could disguise the answers.

It's playable for free via the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

Looking for a different day?

A new NYT Strands puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Friday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Strands hints and answers for Friday, July 31 (game #880).

Strands is the NYT's latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it's great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games, and Marc's Wordle today page for the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Strands today (game #881) - hint #1 - today's themeWhat is the theme of today's NYT Strands?

• Today's NYT Strands theme is… As if!

NYT Strands today (game #881) - hint #2 - clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• GAPE
• HUGE
• CRIER
• DRUG
• SURE
• STOP

NYT Strands today (game #881) - hint #3 - spangram lettersHow many letters are in today's spangram?

• Spangram has 7 letters

NYT Strands today (game #881) - hint #4 - spangram positionWhat are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?

• First side: left, 1st row

• Last side: right, 7th row

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #881) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Strands, game #881, are…

• SILLY
• ABSURD
• PREPOSTEROUS
• LUDICROUS
• LAUGHABLE
• SPANGRAM: GETREAL

• My rating: Easy
• My score: Perfect

I would be lying if I didn’t say it was great fun spotting and connecting PREPOSTEROUS, but I’m sure there weren’t many player who missed this 12-letter word practically standing out and waving at us on the left side of the board.

To be fair, the rest of the board was similarly easy to spot, with only LAUGHABLE slowing me down a little as I completed my search for reactions to an unbelievable statement.

In my schooldays, I was behind plenty of tall tales that would elicit an “as if!” response, although the thing was I believed most of them. Here are some of my claims aged nine, and the truth about each: my uncle was a professional footballer (he played for a village team), I was related to Paul McCartney (my mum fancied him), my mate Kevin's family were millionaires (they won a raffle). As if, indeed!

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Friday, July 31, game #880)

• CHARMING
• BOLD
• BOSSY
• LOYAL
• GENEROUS
• DRAMATIC
• SPANGRAM: LEOTHELION

What is NYT Strands?

Strands is the NYT's not-so-new-any-more word game, following Wordle and Connections. It's now a fully fledged member of the NYT's games stable that has been running for a year and which can be played on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

I've got a full guide to how to play NYT Strands, complete with tips for solving it, so check that out if you're struggling to beat it each day.

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Strands puzzle No.881 for Aug. 1.

• Seagate confirms its 5TB-per-disk Mozaic 5+ platform is on track for qualification shipments in late calendar 2027, putting 50TB-class drives on course for 2028
• Qualification is not availability: OEM and hyperscaler validation adds months to a year, pushing real volume to 2029; the original roadmap target for 50TB was 2026
• With most high-capacity storage already allocated in 2028 under long-term contracts and Seagate holding unit output flat, retail buyers are last in a queue that is already years long

Seagate used its recent fiscal fourth quarter earnings 2026 call to put a fresh date on the next rung of its hard drive roadmap - but it is not close.

Company chair and chief executive Dave Mosley told analysts the Mozaic 5+, the company's 5TB-per-disk platform, remains on track for qualification shipments in late calendar 2027.

This is what matters for those looking to score a single highest-capacity consumer-grade HDD that Seagate makes: Ten of those platters in a single 3.5-inch chassis is what gets Seagate to the 50TB-class drives it has been promising for the better part of a decade.

A bad time to be looking for a storage upgrade

Most consumer PCs now ship with SSDs, but flash remains considerably more expensive than disk at equivalent capacity. Buyers who need bulk storage and can tolerate slower access times still choose HDDs for the simple reason that they cost far less per terabyte.

The problem for end users and professionals who need that capacity right now is that, as with RAM and SSDs, hyperscalers have entered the equation, and constrained supply is pushing prices and availability down across the board.

It does not help that qualification of Seagate's 50TB drives in late 2027 is not the same as availability. Qualification shipments are engineering samples sent to OEM and hyperscale customers to run their own validation; production is scheduled for 2028, and the original target was 2026.

Seagate's public roadmap slides in late 2019 put 50TB HAMR drives in 2026. That target survived, at least rhetorically, into 2023, when the company was still pairing a delayed 30TB launch with a stated 50TB-by-2026 ambition. By mid-2025, when the first 40TB HAMR samples went out to data center customers, the roadmap had been restated as 44TB in 2027 and 50TB in 2028.

More delays in the offing?

Seagate also flagged its own execution risk on the same call. Management noted that moving from 3TB to 4TB, then to 5TB per disk, requires more tool time and can slow manufacturing throughput. That is an unusually candid caveat to volunteer to analysts, and it is the most likely source of another date change.

None of these points to a further slip, but it does make for a sobering timeline. Retail buyers get nothing when the drives ship in 2028, because that output is already spoken for by Seagate's largest customers: data center operators and hyperscalers.

The channel is served last, and a 50TB drive is unlikely to appear on a shelf, physical or virtual, until well after volume production begins around 2029.

The unintended consequences of progress, including the risks and possible harms caused, are always a factor that scientists and engineers consider in building any new technology. In today's age, the spotlight is on AI – but the range of possibilities that progress might bring is near unfathomable.

I am become death

Chris Nolan, director of a string of cinematic successes across the last three decades, was speaking on the subject matter of his 2023 blockbuster 'Oppenheimer' during a press tour.

Quote of the day

This article is part of TechRadar Pro's QOTD project to provide an insight into the minds of the brightest and most recognized figures in the technology industry today and in years gone by. Read the full series here.

During a New York panel following a preview screening of the film, Nolan was speaking on the rise of AI, which has fallen into perspective after showing immense promise.

Although the mainstream image of AI has been coloured by a string of science-fiction movies throughout history, there are still valid questions to be asked about the unintended consequences of building and releasing new tools without an awful lot of testing.

Similar to the nature of the work that scientist J Robert Oppenheimer did on the Manhattan Project, there is a "dual-use dilemma" in the way that AI could either be used for good or to cause catastrophic harm.

Unintended consequences

Similar to fears expressed during that period of history, scientists and researchers frequently warn about ways in which AI can either be misaligned or spiral out of control, or ways in which people can exploit it for malicious intent.

A study published in May 2024, for example, highlights the possible risks of a future AI that could deceive humans. It uses documented examples as a springboard to speculate that a future system may decide to mislead humanity for purposes that differ from the humans that built and use it.

There are also flaws with these parallels, namely, unlike nuclear weapons, AI development spans thousands of organizations around the world. There's also a dominance in the private sector, a much lower barrier to entry, and more difficulties in verifying and inspecting whether AI is being used in positive or harmful ways.

Gamers are planning a boycott called PSBlackout for the week of Aug. 23.

• NEC unveiled a 999 g business laptop with exceptional battery endurance
• LAVIE BM94C uses carbon fibre to achieve a remarkably light business device
• AI battery management helps extend operating time throughout demanding working days

NEC Personal Computers has unveiled the LAVIE BM94C, a business laptop weighing just 999 g with a starting price of 584,100 yen (about $3,570).

The lightweight notebook is initially launching only in Japan despite attracting attention for combining premium hardware with unusually long battery endurance.

Developed as the flagship model in NEC's latest LAVIE business lineup, the device focuses on portability, durability, and AI-assisted power management.

Built around portability without compromising battery life

The BM94C was developed under what NEC calls Project 999, an engineering effort balancing an ultra-light chassis with a large battery normally associated with heavier business laptops.

Its body uses laminated aerospace-grade carbon fibre supplied by Toray, while the top panel incorporates the company's ultra-lightweight core technology to improve rigidity without adding unnecessary weight.

NEC also applied fingerprint-resistant and abrasion-resistant coatings, making the notebook easier to clean while reducing visible wear from daily business use.

Power comes from a 99.9 Wh battery rated for approximately 30.5 hours of video playback and around 50.8 hours of idle operation under JEITA 3.0 testing standards.

According to NEC, a 30-minute recharge provides approximately eight hours of operation, reducing the need to carry a charger during short business trips.

The company also introduced Long Battery Mode, an AI feature analysing applications consuming unnecessary power before recommending ways to extend battery life.

NEC further claims its intelligent charging tech reduces long-term battery degradation, maintaining about 72.7% battery health after five years of regular charging.

The notebook is powered by Intel Core Ultra 5 322 or 335 processors alongside the Core Ultra 7 355, with memory configurations ranging from 16 GB to 32 GB.

Buyers can choose between 256 GB, 512 GB, or 1 TB solid-state drives depending on storage requirements and professional workloads.

The BM94C features a 14-inch WUXGA display with 1,920 × 1,200 resolution, while its 16:10 aspect ratio provides additional vertical workspace for productivity tasks.

NEC pairs the display with Windows 11 Pro, aiming to improve productivity during document editing, multitasking, video conferencing, and extended office work.

Business features extend beyond lightweight hardware

Beyond its core hardware, the BM94C includes two Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, HDMI, and Gigabit Ethernet for connecting modern peripherals and external displays.

Wireless connectivity comes through Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4, while a Full HD webcam supporting Windows Hello provides secure biometric sign-in for business users.

Those connectivity options allow users to connect multiple displays, wired networks, external storage devices, and modern accessories without requiring multiple external adapters.

NEC said the portable laptop was designed for professionals travelling frequently while still requiring desktop-class connectivity throughout the working day.

The BM94C forms part of NEC's refreshed LAVIE business lineup following the integration of its commercial computer operations under a single brand.

Via PC Watch (originally in Japanese)

Out of all the stories I've covered as a consumer tech journalist, subscription fatigue has been one of the most common frustrations I’ve come across — and the usual fixes of service hopping, signing up for discounted annual plans and searching for deals no longer seem to be cutting it.

Ongoing price hikes, vanishing content from catalogues and locking basic features behind paywalls have left the subscription model looking thoroughly squeezed by Big Tech — and it’s making people vote with their wallets.

We've already seen the resurgence of physical media, which has been partly fuelled by the growing frustration with 'renting' services, but there's also a small tech hobby that's starting to see a real spike in interest for similar reasons: DIY home servers.

Instead of paying an ongoing fee to access online services, many tech-savvy people are increasingly setting up their own private servers at home using nothing more than an old PC and some hard drives, in some cases.

Home servers are by no means new, but the scene has moved on from being the domain of hardcore tinkerers who wanted to do cool things with their friends online.

Google Trends data shows that even at its peak in 2007 — when Microsoft launched Windows Home Server at CES, popularizing plug-and-play storage for non-techies — self-hosting was still only ever popular among small groups of people.

But that's changing. Nowadays, interest in the topic is growing as more people experiment with old tech they already have lying around to get their privacy and digital ownership back from the tech giants, while also cutting down on e-waste.

To get a better understanding of why home servers are suddenly catching on, I spoke to DIY enthusiasts, hardware manufacturers, software providers, tech YouTubers and even one of the moderators of the r/HomeServer subreddit.

If you’re curious to learn more about home servers, keep reading to find out what they are, why the topic is trending, what they can be used for, and how you can start getting involved.

What is a home server?

The simplest way to describe a home server is to think of it just like any other computer. But unlike your everyday PC, this machine is a dedicated hub hosted on your private network that's accessible both locally and remotely.

Want to stop sending your holiday snaps to a big tech corporation and store them on a computer you own? Need one place to back up all your devices? A home server can do this in a way that functions much like your existing cloud subscriptions.

Looking to test a vibe-coded app without risking your main computer? You can absolutely use a virtual machine (VM) on your home server to simulate a safe 'computer inside a computer'. Just keep in mind that once you start building setups a small business would be proud of, you'll want to graduate from basic home servers and check out the r/HomeLab community.

New r/homelab Users Start Here from r/homelab

"A home server is really a sandbox," Zach Ferree, a tech YouTuber who runs the channel Zach’s Tech Turf with 1.98 million subscribers, says. "You can replicate the kind of environment you'd see in an actual IT department and test things out without any risk of breaking something that matters."

IT professionals often build robust home labs to safely test things like network configurations for sharing data or run demanding VMs. However, the rise of user-friendly containers — which are similar to VMs but instead of simulating the hardware, they mimic the software — has opened this world to everyday hobbyists too, who are increasingly using simplified home servers to bypass subscriptions, host their own apps, manage automations and more.

A big reason why home servers have become easier to use is because of the modern operating systems (OS) that have made them more user-friendly. Even VMs and containers are much more accessible, as these OS have replaced complex command-line setups with visual app stores.

Free, open-source server OS like Linux and TrueNas have played a major role in making that possible, according to Kris Moore, CTO at TrueNAS. "For home-lab enthusiasts and tech-savvy users, [home server OS] have provided an accessible way to explore the concept of running enterprise-grade storage solutions without requiring significant upfront investment in hardware."

This shift is largely due to how the software itself has evolved. Moore explains that TrueNAS has grown from a simple digital filing cabinet into a 'hyperconverged platform', which is essentially an all-in-one system that seamlessly handles both storage and computing.

By bridging that gap, Moore notes OS like TrueNAS SCALE make home servers "capable of running Linux containers, apps and virtual machines". "Making apps, virtual machines and containers fully supported features opened the door to far more deployment options beyond the traditional storage role [of home servers]," he added.

Why are home servers trending?

There are three major reasons why home servers are seeing a spike in interest. The first and foremost is because it's a cheaper alternative to paying for subscriptions. This is something I considered myself after running out of disc space and paying for multiple cloud subscriptions.

Betty Van, a former occupational therapist turned tech YouTuber with 1.3 million followers, hit the same wall a year ago on a much bigger scale. With a growing library of large video files from her channel Switch and Click, Google wanted to charge her close to $300 / £220 / AU$420 a month for 20TB of storage, even though the same sized hard drive costs only about $100 / £200 / AU$300 more.

Her next most common reason is to do with the entertainment services like music, movies, TV and gaming removing content to cut down on licensing costs or avoid paying residual fees. "My bills are going up and they're taking away shows — you don't have any sense of control over what is going on on the platforms," Van shared about her own experience.

"A good example would be The Greatest Showman. It was originally on Disney+ and then it moved to Hulu, and now it's nowhere. Or when Sony recently removed a bunch of movies. These events act as catalysts for people saying enough is enough, and then they look into the alternatives."

Those alternatives aren't just about building media servers either — even though it’s arguably "the primary draw", according to one of the moderators at r/HomeServers. “Home servers are absolutely not just about piracy. I believe people are realizing how much data companies hold on them and the power that comes with it.

"We expect Apple and Google to back up our photos indefinitely, but what happens if they terminate your account? Without regional data access rights, that's a lifetime of photos gone. Music streaming has the same issue. Songs and song libraries can vanish overnight, including the ones you love."

These events act as catalysts for people saying enough is enough, and then they look into the alternatives

Betty Van, YouTuber

Subscribers were reminded of that ownership gap recently when PlayStation announced it will stop releasing physical game discs from 2028, raising questions about why physical media regulations haven't caught up to digital assets, leaving buyers without a clear right to resell, trade or lend what they've 'bought'.

"Home servers have always been a niche corner of the tech world, but interest keeps growing. As companies keep chipping away at people's ownership of their own media, more people want that ownership back,” Ferree added.

Another part of this is that the boycotting of these services is being seen as a quiet revolt against Big Tech. By building local, self-hosted systems, everyday people are taking back control of their data, bypassing subscription traps and regaining their privacy — a shift increasingly championed by nonprofits like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

A post shared by Electronic Frontier Foundation (@efforg)

A photo posted by on

Rory Mir, director of open access and tech community engagement at EEF, says: "There's the immediate revolts or protests of 'we're not going to pay this continual rent to these big operators', but then there’s a real sense of empowerment and independence that comes from not being beholden to a huge company.

"I think it's actually healthy for the internet as a whole, as an ecosystem, to have less centralized gatekeepers in that way," they added, raising the importance of healthy market competition, not being forced into upgrade cycles, avoiding outages and taking charge of your data.

What to use a home server for

Home servers are most commonly associated with home media libraries, which are a staple of the home-theatre community, but they're capable of far more than just storing and managing data.

A huge part of making that possible is the usability. Home server OS have lowered the barrier to entry by making it easier to interact with home servers. Most people will pick an OS based on the utility of their project, but home servers are becoming more plug-and-play, thanks to services like TrueNAS.

TrueNAS is paving the way for this, which is why it's one of the most popular choices in the wider home lab community. As a result, Moore has come across plenty of different use cases for home servers just by seeing what the software is being used for.

@zachstechturf

♬ original sound - Zach's Tech Turf

TrueNAS is used in a remarkably diverse set of use cases worldwide

Kris Moore, TrueNAS

"TrueNAS is used in a remarkably diverse set of use cases worldwide," he says. "Just when we think we've seen it all, someone surprises us with something new. Making apps, VMs, and containers fully supported features opened the door to far more deployment options beyond the traditional storage role.

"In the home lab community, those range from the obvious — media and video serving (Plex, Jellyfin), development and CI/CD platforms (Gitea, Jenkins) [for testing code] — to less expected ones, like hosting game servers.

"On the TrueNAS Enterprise side, apps and VMs give us the flexibility to meet demanding customer workloads across a variety of market segments: media asset managers running directly on the storage array, backup software such as Veeam virtual storage appliances, and platforms for ingesting security camera feeds," Moore says.

Outside of home automations, which I’ll dig into more below, you can use your home server to do a wide range of useful tasks like running apps for tasks like organizing your notes, blocking annoying ads, managing passwords, hosting your own portfolio, running your own news feed, LLMs and AI agents.

What is a home assistant server?

(Image credit: Pixabay)

Home servers are also growing in popularity because they offer a way to combine the increasing number of smart home devices finding their way into our households into one management system.

They have also been found to be a great way to control and automate your setup without having to worry about forced updates, system outages or privacy.

There are dedicated smart home OS for home servers like Home Assistant — a free, open-source smart-home platform built by Paulus Schoutsen that now automates more than a million homes — that lets you control lights, security cameras, appliances and more, entirely through your own network.

Self-hosting used to be a bit intimidating, but it's really easy to get started nowadays

Paulus Schoutsen, Home Assistant

"Home Assistant runs locally in your home and doesn't require the internet to work. Most big-tech platforms grind to a halt the moment the internet drops.

"If you build your self-hosted smart home with Home Assistant, and choose devices that directly communicate with it [through protocols like Zigbee, Z-Wave or Matter compatible devices], your smart home will work with or without the internet," he says.

Schoutsen also highlights the sustainability benefits of home servers, and not just in the context of reusing old tech to set one up as part of the Right-to-Repair movement. "A device that outlives its manufacturer's interest doesn't have to become e-waste," he says.

"Because your hub and locally-connected devices don't depend on a company's servers, no one can switch them off from afar. Some Home Assistant users have decades-old smart home devices still running in their homes."

"Self-hosting used to be a bit intimidating, but it's really easy to get started nowadays. Our Home Assistant Green is an easy plug-and-play option to connect thousands of different smart home devices. It can even run other self-hosted apps."

Why home servers are suddenly so expensive

(Image credit: Unsplash / Liam Briese)

While the software for running home servers has got a lot easier to use over the years (you no longer have to live in a terminal), the hardware — despite becoming more accessible — is a lot less easy to come by at the time of writing. That's largely down to massive corporate demand for AI data centres, which has driven up RAM and storage prices for everyday hobbyists.

Then there's rising energy costs. Home servers do run around the clock, which adds up quickly as electricity bills climb, so it’s important to choose the hardware that you need to not use excess energy. As Mir suggests, "having more energy-efficient components [is a solution]."

"But then the ongoing energy as a user does involve maintenance," they say. "It does involve checking for updates. You're kind of committing to this being a hobby for ideally only a few hours a month, but it can be the least convenient time when you need to use those two hours.

"Those are the kinds of the things I would give [newcomers] a heads up about," Mir says before adding "remembering to have a proper backup system as well. I think a lot of people will treat their home server as 'I can just put all my files there and I have it backed up'. But it's best practice to have it either offsite or at least another backup, so that if your server goes kaput, you don't lose everything you've been curating there."

There are various strategies for mitigating the risk of losing data, but the gold standard at enterprise level is the '3-2-1 backup rule', which insists on three copies of the same data that are stored on two distinct types of hardware or storage tech (i.e. the cloud and a local hard drive), with one copy kept off-site. Although, many can get away with just a one backup.

The risks of home servers

(Image credit: iStock)

Home servers can pose real network-security risks if not set up properly. Fortunately, there are a lot of precautions that you can take when, for instance, setting up remote access.

Opening the wrong ports (essentially doorways that let your data in and out) to the internet can make your home network vulnerable to scammers. Using network security tools like VPNs, mesh VPNs, tunneling services and port forwarding can help to make sure that your devices connect securely to the internet. But each have their pros and cons, according to Dr Pete Membrey, ExpressVPN's Chief Research Officer.

[Whether you need a VPN for your home server] depends on the use case and the person using it as to which will work best for them

Dr Pete Membrey, ExpressVPN

"Mesh VPNs and tunneling services try to bridge the gap between VPNs and port forwarding, and in many cases, they can be beneficial. They're often touted as being simpler and easier to use than a traditional VPN, but in my opinion, this isn't really the case for most people," he says.

"Most find it much easier to understand that when they connect to their home VPN, it’s as though they connected to their Wi-Fi at home, and the level of access that would provide (just as if a malicious actor joined your home Wi-Fi).

"That's not to say that mesh systems aren't useful — they are very powerful — but they need to be set up correctly. It depends on the use case and the person using it as to which will work best for them."

Where to get started with home servers

More than half of the DAS users we surveyed already own a Mini PC or an older computer and tend to install systems like Unraid or TrueNAS to build their own servers

TerraMaster

Whether you're looking to reduce your subscriptions to cloud services like Dropbox or want to make better use of that old laptop that's been lying around, you might be considering setting up your first home server, but what type of setup is right for you is a hard question.

There's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all home server, simply because of the various different ways to approach it. As Ferree says, "it really comes down to what you're trying to get out of it".

Are you looking to replace basic cloud services? An off-the-shelf (network-attached storage) NAS device might be all you need to get you up and running fast.

TerraMaster, a company that specializes in making these devices, says that a "NAS offers the advantage of a hassle-free and reliable experience — dedicated systems, built-in data protection [like RAID / JBOD], remote access, and private cloud functionality are ready to use out of the box. They are particularly suitable for users seeking convenience, stability, and hands-free operation, making them the preferred choice for most home users."

Do you want to build a personal digital hub for the household and automate your home? You might want to explore the hooking up a PC to a direct-attached storage (DAS) route.

"More than half of the DAS users we surveyed already own a mini PC or an older computer and tend to install systems like Unraid or TrueNAS to build their own servers," a spokesperson from TerraMaster said.

For beginners, figure out your goal first. Scaling from there is just adding drives or moving to a bigger enclosure once you outgrow what you started with

Zach Ferree, YouTuber

"The core driving force behind this trend is cost-effectiveness: with rising prices for NAS systems and hard drives, users are unwilling to pay for duplicate CPUs, memory, and operating systems, instead choosing to reuse existing equipment to reduce costs."

"It's a lot like building a custom gaming PC versus buying a prebuilt one," Ferree says. "An off-the-shelf NAS means you're not troubleshooting compatibility issues, and you've got real support if something goes wrong.

"Building it yourself gets you more value for your money, since you're only paying for hardware, not a markup. You also pick up real skills along the way, and that translates directly into fields like IT and cybersecurity.

"For beginners, figure out your goal first. Scaling from there is just adding drives or moving to a bigger enclosure once you outgrow what you started with."

Looking for suggestions for my home server project. from r/HomeServerHow to set up a home server in 2026

A NAS (left) and DAS (right) offer two different ways to set up a home server (Image credit: Future)

While I'm not going to walk you through exactly how make your own home server or how to build the perfect home server here (I'm only at the start of my own journey), I will share some of the advice I got from my conversations with the community based on a few different scenarios.

"Let's say you have a computer or a laptop that's the main machine you use and you want to make that into a server," Van says. "You buy some drives, like a drive bay (it's an enclosure), and you use it as storage, like a normal computer would. That way, you're not using any complicated operating systems. It's just storage for you to use.

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"So, a step above that, I would say, is going with a NAS rather than the DAS. In the beginning, you can get an off-the-shelf one because it's really easy to use. And if you decide later on, 'I want to do something more unique', they don't tell you this, but you can override your NAS's OS with [say] a Linux one."

For Van, a NAS is the easier and more affordable way to get started with your own home server. "You lose some control, but most people aren't going to be using the advanced features where you need all that control in the first place."

"Then if you go even beyond that, and you have a ton of drives, and you want to do a lot of self-hosting with a lot of firepower, then I would say go the DIY route," she says.

Picking the right hardware setup for your home server can feel overwhelming, but if we boil it down to the three main setups that Van suggests, it becomes slightly easier to work out a starting point. Take the quiz below to find out which route fits your technical comfort level and end goals.

No matter which setup you landed on, it's important to keep a close eye on your budget. Surging RAM and storage prices have made building a custom DIY server from scratch a pricey endeavor. If you don't already have older hardware ready to repurpose, Van suggests an off-the-shelf option but warns that these are pricey nowadays too.

"I would definitely wait until PC parts go down a bit," Van says. "If you are self-hosting like local LLMs, then the DIY route does make way more sense because you can plug in your GPUs and max out your RAM. There are also NAS’s that do that nowadays, but they cost a lot."

Based on what the r/HomeServers have seen the community talk about, most first-timers are opting to repurpose existing hardware these days rather than buy or DIY a "proper" NAS, according to one of the subreddit's moderators.

"That is certainly the most frequent recommendation I see here and in similar subreddits, as well as what I would personally recommend to newcomers. Mini PCs are also a good starter point, but you certainly don't need to buy one," they said.

Pretty much any computer or laptop from the last decade will work perfectly fine for a beginner

A moderator from r/Home Server

"Pretty much any computer or laptop from the last decade will work perfectly fine for a beginner. You just don't need the latest and greatest enterprise-grade equipment to run a photo server. I would say mini PCs or repurposing your own machines is more common for novices."

Ultimately, as Ferree points out, home servers are about learning by doing. "If Linux feels intimidating, spin up a VM and practice basic tasks. If a role uses something like Active Directory, build a small test environment for that.

"And on the simplest level, set up a network share everyone in your house can use. You'll learn more from that first setup than you'd expect, and you walk away with something actually useful instead of passing a USB drive around the house."

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle for Aug. 1 No. 1,869.

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle No. 1147 for Aug. 1.