Drones Are Reshaping War

While accounts of military strategists using uncrewed hot air balloons for attacks and surveillance exist from the 19th century, the first use of drones as a modern concept began in World War I with a radio-controlled propeller craft. This online...

Drones are legally categorized as aircraft, so when homeowners see a drone hovering over their private property, it is illegal to shoot them down. As drones become more commercially available, their illicit use is also increasing. Celebrities have reported incidents of drone privacy invasions and events planners often deploy anti-drone systems to prevent incursions.

From ballistic missiles to armed drones, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is proving the devastating power of modern weaponry. This infographic illustrates and explains the uses and effects of the weapons of choice for both sides of the conflict. Tactics are also explored in regards to their efficacy and consequences, with expert commentary added.

Drones are outfitted with fireworks and positioned using 3D software to ensure perfect timing and safe spacing during shows. A single GPS error during planning can ruin the show, as happened in 2024 when a drone crashed and injured a spectator due to programming failures.

Could aliens destroy us from light-years away? The team at Kurzgesagt imagines the impact of a highly sophisticated alien civilization setting out to crush humanity and considers the real-world logistics for warfare conducted across the Universe.

The Pentagon has released footage that appears to show a Russian aircraft intercepting a US Air Force drone in international airspace over the Black Sea.

Drone photographer George Steinmetz spent a decade documenting the vast scope of humanity's agriculture using drone photography. Roughly 40% of the Earth's surface is dedicated to growing food, and experts suggest we must produce 60% more food than we do now to feed the projected population in 2050. Browse the absolutely stunning photos here.

Peter McIndoe claims the US government killed 12 billion birds only to replace them with drones. These statements have powered protests—and McIndoe's fictional campaign that highlights how conspiracies and their theorists are treated.

This data visualization from Reuters shows how massive AI investment has become by December 2025—revealing that, in today’s dollars, spending has surpassed the combined total of the Apollo program and the Manhattan Project.

The Drone Awards are a prestigious global competition focused on aerial photography and video. They are dedicated to showcasing this distinct genre of photography, seeking entries from various platforms, including drones and fixed-wing aircraft.

Airships, including blimps, have had a pretty bad reputation since the tragic incendiary crash of the Hindenburg in New Jersey in 1937. But an intense competition is ongoing between airship manufacturers looking to develop the trucks of the sky: a...

The world's most valuable defense companies (for example, Lockheed Martin) make up much of the global defense industry. As of 2025, RTX led the pack with a roughly $183B market cap.

The United States has been fighting a global war on drugs for decades. By making drugs more expensive and less available, the US has sought to reduce drug use and inhibit the international drug trade. However, increasing prison populations,...

The Pentagon made a splash in recent years with revelations of videos showing fighter pilots observing unknown aerial objects. Lindsey uncovers stories of still-unverified UFO sightings and addresses the likely possibility of life beyond Earth.

The legal tests presidents have used to avoid seeking congressional authorization were designed for weaker adversaries. This piece argues that those tests fail against similarly armed competitors, where even limited strikes risk significant escalation, potentially triggering a constitutional crisis over who has the authority to respond.

Companies now make unilateral decisions once reserved for nation-states, such as controlling satellite internet access in active war zones and influencing global information flows. Lawmakers and the international order are struggling to keep up with technological developments, let alone regulate them.

Engineers are racing to create tiny robot bees that can be programmed to mimic natural bee behavior, helping in specific scenarios such as indoor farming and space agriculture. Battery life challenges may be solved by having these robots accompanied by a nearby "mother" drone power supply.

Robots. Drones. Artificial Intelligence. All three are touted as potential saviors for farmers, and are already being deployed on large farms, where they assist with such tasks as managing crops, milking cows, and helping farmers make decisions about their land. But agricultural AI could have disastrous, unintended consequences.

Wired's Grant Imahara visits Los Angeles, where he witnesses how augmented reality will be a key component of how builders will do their jobs in the future.

In 2015, ESPN used untethered drones for the first time in US live sports—deploying them at the X Games to capture aerial footage from angles previously impossible.

Some experts suggest airlines lose money on every flight. This video dives into how airlines have leveraged their loyalty programs to make billions of dollars, effectively evolving into banks.

Industrialization brought massive changes to warfare during the Great War. Newly-invented killing machines begat novel defense mechanisms, which, in turn spurred the development of even deadlier technologies. Nearly every aspect of what we would consider modern warfare debuted on World War I battlefields. Starting with soldiers on horseback carrying lances and ending in poison gas, machine guns, and aerial battles, this gallery shows the first tools of modern warfare.

A video examines the massive surge in AI spending—forecast to hit $500B by 2026—and how this may be propping up a fragile US economy. Experts warn that if AI investment slows or under-delivers, the consequences could be felt in markets, jobs and growth.

SpaceX has cut launch costs by over 95%—from $54,000 per kilogram to around $2,000—reshaping how we access space.

Brian Knappenberger created a five-part, seven-hour documentary on the war released on the streamer in 2025, the latest in a tradition of hundreds of documentaries covering the event. Expert Thomas Bass, the author of the essay, was invited to be interviewed for the documentary, arguing the conflict's origins are the most crucial aspects to understand. In turn, Bass interviewed Knappenberger—whose father fought in the war—on the Netflix production. Their discussion revealed how streamers mediate historical understanding to a generation that does not have a consensus on what the Vietnam War was.

This video explores the history, construction, and preparation of modern fireworks displays, including creating gunpowder from scratch. Experimentation with fireworks underwater is also featured, but they require special materials to prevent water from infiltrating the fireworks shell.

Anonymous has been waging a cyber war on Russia for invading Ukraine. CNBC takes a look at how effective the collective’s six main strategies have been.

Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett is one of the many people who’ve come face-to-face with the downside effects of AI, and in particular, deepfakes. He was recently shown a deepfake of himself in a video, which caused him to worry about how bad actors will take advantage of the technology.

B-2 Bombers are the world's most expensive plane, coming in at a cost of $2B per aircraft. There are roughly 20 in the world, all in use by the United States Air Force. They are known for their single-wing profile, allowing for stealth and the ability to transport some of the world's largest bombs.

Author Andrew Miller argues that widespread adoption of self-driving vehicles is no longer a distant promise, as Waymo expands into over 15 cities. However, he warns the technology's biggest remaining hurdles are political: liability, labor, and whether cities embrace or resist the shift.

From the Wright brothers' flight of the first powered plane in 1903 near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, to SpaceX's debut of the Falcon 9 rocket in 2010 with reusable boosters, this interactive shows off the technological evolution of flight, from mechanical propulsion to ballistic spaceflight.

An old trope claims that war is ‘normal’, innate, and inevitable in the Middle East. However, the history of the region reveals complex and civilized systems of coexistence. Empires found economic and political strength in fostering diversity;...

How harmful are today’s herbicides for us humans, and for the environments they’re seeping into? And do we really need weedkillers to feed the world?

Two years ago, policymakers in Washington made multiple predictions about the course of the war between Russia and Ukraine. One year later this site revisited several common assumptions about the war—for example, that Russia would swiftly defeat Ukraine—and asks several experts if they came true, or not. But things can always change.

The Associated Press shares 20 photographers’ frames from Sept. 11, 2001, when hijackers crashed commercial planes into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.

In 2021, countries in the Middle East spent $168 billion on weapons. Defense spending in the Middle East has been falling in the last few years, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that the region is de-militarizing. In 2021, Saudi Arabia spent $55...

Shortly after the public release of related technology in 2017, some experts saw the technical limitations of deepfakes as preventing them from becoming widespread tools of disinformation. Since then, the neural networks behind diffusion models and generative AI have eliminated the barriers to creating convincing synthetic media for propaganda.

Lidar is a cutting-edge tool using lasers from an aircraft to map the elevations of huge swaths of land across the world. This technology has been especially effective in archaeology. It has revealed dozens of lost major historical sites concealed beneath overgrown brush and forests. From Canadian forts to Mayan settlements, check out these 32 significant finds from lidar.

The global trade of flowers is worth billions of dollars, and new markets and supply chains are opening each year. This multimedia deep dive takes a look at the origins of the modern flower trade in the Netherlands and its expansion into dozens of...

Stratolaunch completed a second hypersonic flight of its Talon-A2 autonomous vehicle, showcasing reusable hypersonic aircraft capabilities. The aircraft carried payloads and Department of Defense experiments while achieving Mach 5 speeds.

Analysts warn the new H-1B fee could trigger labor shortages in tech, medicine, and universities; push firms to offshore more work; and drive skilled Indian workers and students toward other countries—weakening America's innovation edge.

Nearly 70% of Americans feel uncomfortable riding in a driverless car, and 81% of them would not fly on a pilotless plane. However, automated systems on planes were slowly introduced and advertised as enhancing safety—an approach that may benefit driverless vehicles.

The appearance and downing of a Chinese surveillance balloon brought the concept of high-altitude floating aircraft into the public consciousness. While sparking a diplomatic row, it also revealed how many objects—nefarious or benign—are...

The technology can revolutionize education, medicine, and art through actions such as helping a disabled person express themselves. However, fictional audio and video can also jeopardize a person's reputation and life or quickly spread misinformation, even without content being flawless recreations.

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Western military aid has helped dictate Ukraine's capability and strategy on the battlefield. From advanced ground-launched missiles to millions of rounds of ammunition, the supplies have been critical for Ukraine but force Western countries to tip-toe around the appearance of direct conflict with Russia. This visual deep-dive breaks down some of the most important military aid to date.