Audience Choice Awards: Top Tech of CES 2021
For CES 2021, we asked readers to pick the best gadgets of the show in every category for our first-ever Audience Choice Awards.
Digital Trends Tech For Change CES 2021 Awards
Of all the world-changing technologies and innovative ideas on display at CES 2021, these four impressed us the most.
The future of making stuff: Inside the evolution of 3D printing with Formlabs
Change is coming to 3D printing. After a big burst of innovation and creativity on the hardware side, many are now shifting focus to materials engineering.
Digital Trends Top Tech of CES 2021 Awards
The first all-digital CES brought challenges, but also a world-changing slate of amazing gadgets and devices. We picked the best of the best.
What to expect at CES: Fringe, futuristic, and emerging technology
What does CES 2021 have in store when it comes to weird, offbeat, and futuristic technology? It's hard to say this year, but we have some educated guesses.
What does 2021 have in store? Here are science fiction’s predictions
Oddly enough, there are a lot of popular science fiction stories set in the year 2021. Here's what they got right (and wrong) about the future.
Robotic police officers are slowly being normalized, whether we like it or not
Robotic police officers are a rare novelty right now, but as law enforcement agencies across the world buy them, they're quickly becoming normalized.
Holotron is a robotic exosuit that could transform the way we use VR
Virtual reality has progressed in leaps and bounds in the past few years, but virtual worlds still don't feel real. Holotron aims to change that.
A disembodied robot mouth and 14 other 2020 stories we laughed at
Forget the challenges of the last 12 months and instead have some fun reading our pick of the quirkiest tech stories from the past year.
His granddad lost the ability to read, so he built a DIY text-to-speech rig
Ben Affleck (no, no that one) is an engineer. So when his 100-year old grandfather lost his ability to read, he flexed his engineering muscle to develop a fix.
No cows required: This startup’s lab-grown milk is identical to the real thing
The dairy industry causes monumental damage to the environment. To change that, this clever Israeli startup has developed a way to make real milk without cows
This is how Google’s internet-serving Loon balloons can float for nearly a year
Alphabet's Loon balloons recently set a record for most consecutive days spent aloft in the stratosphere. How'd they do it? A software upgrade.
Meet Ghost Robotics, the Boston Dynamics of combat bots
Ghost’s quadruped bots are the scary older brother of every other dog robot you’ve ever seen. And with good reason. They’re shipping off to join the military.
Robots progressed by leaps and bounds in 2020. These were the highlights
The past 12 months have given us no shortage of big breakthroughs and amazing applications of robotics technology. Here's a quick recap of our favorites
This clever new technique could help us map the ocean floor — from the sky
The overwhelming majority of Earth’s oceans are an unexplored mystery. But thanks to a groundbreaking innovation from Stanford University, that may soon change
Behind the scenes: How Apple designed its most exclusive product ever
Limited to a run of exactly 15, this is Apple’s most exclusive product of all time. It’s pretty amazing – but not as amazing as the people it honors.
Digitizing your brain: Sci-fi pipe dream, or scientific possibility?
Hooking your brain up to a computer and digitizing your consciousness has long been a staple of science fiction -- but is such a thing possible in real life?
How A.I. bumblebee brains could usher in a new era for navigation
U.K startup Opteran Technologies has a bold plan to revolutionize navigation. Instead of relying on GPS, it wants to give autonomous cars A.I. bumblebee brains
The digital switch that blocks all websites from selling your personal data
Some of the internet's most influential organizations are joining forces to formalize a new privacy tool that'll protect your data with a single click.
The end of Arecibo: The era of giant telescopes is coming to a close
One of astronomy's most famous telescopes, the Arecibo Observatory, is shutting down. And its closure may mark the beginning of the end for giant telescopes.
How SpaceX could transform Starlink into an ultraprecise GPS network
SpaceX is building the Starlink satellite network in hopes of blanketing the globe in broadband, but it could also be used for a second purpose: GPS
Measuring microns: The quest to build a better GPS
Existing GPS systems simply aren't precise enough for certain applications, so companies like John Deere and Qualcomm are building something better
How artists and activists are using deepfakes as a force for good
Deepfakes aren't just being used to create porn and misinformation. Nowadays, creators all over the globe are using the tech for prosocial endeavors
Leaps, bounds, and beyond: Robot agility is progressing at a feverish pace
Robots are often depicted as clunky, ungainly creations that walk with slow, halting steps. But in recent years, robots have gone from clumsy to acrobatic.
Planet busters: We asked a physicist what it would take to obliterate Earth
The planet-busting nuclear bomb is a classic science fiction trope. But is it really possible to build a nuke big enough to obliterate the globe?
These blaze-battling bots are the future of firefighting
Firefighting is one of the rare jobs that we're happy to hand over to machines. Here's a look at the most advanced firefighting bots in the biz.
The good, the bad, and the ugly of satellite megaconstellations
Satellite megaconstellations like Starlink could bring broadband internet to underserved parts of the globe -- but they also have some big drawbacks.
Can A.I. solve one of the oldest mysteries of linguistics?
Lost languages like Linear A have confounded researchers for decades, but as artificial intelligence advances, could technology crack the case?
Open-Source Leg: The quest to create a bionic limb that anyone can build
Bionic prosthetics often cost upward of $100,000. But through the power of collaboration, engineers think they can build one for a tenth of that price.
Scientists want to blanket the Earth in sensors. Their secret weapon? Moths
Manually installing sensors in every nook and cranny of Earth's surface would take eons. But what if we enlisted the help of our insect friends?
Are deepfakes a dangerous technology? Creators and regulators disagree
Deepfake technology has great potential for both good and bad, but creators say the negatives are being overblown while the positives are being overlooked.
We have the tech to make wildfires less severe. Deploying it is the hard part
A revolutionary new fire retardant gel could help choke fires out before they happen -- if only we could deploy it widely enough
How big data forced the hunt for extraterrestrial intelligence to evolve
How the age of big data is changing the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
The most influential Hispanic leaders in technology
As part of our ongoing coverage of Hispanic Heritage Month 2020, Digital Trends compiles a list every year of the most influential Hispanic leaders in the technology industry.