News

• Anduril and Archer Aviation unveiled Thunder, an autonomous tiltrotor "loyal wingman" designed to fly alongside crewed attack helicopters
• The rotocraft can carry up to 10 air-to-ground missiles or 76 guided rockets while simultaneously being equipped with counter-drone technology
• Its first flight is targeted for 2027, but no price was disclosed, and no named customer was announced

Anduril opened the 2026 Farnborough International Airshow with the kind of reveal the event is increasingly built around: not a jet, but a robot.

The defense startup, in partnership with electric-aircraft maker Archer Aviation, pulled the wraps off Thunder, a Group 5 autonomous attack rotorcraft designed to fly alongside crewed attack helicopters like the Boeing AH-64 Apache and the US Army's upcoming Bell MV-75 Cheyenne II, or operate entirely on its own.

The Thunder aims to address the growing recognition that the modern battlefield is essentially a killing field for near-surface weaponry and personnel by offering a cheaper, safer option for Western militaries.

Anduril has repeatedly mentioned mass when it comes to the Thunder, and for good reason.

The Thunder can not only essentially act as an autonomous aerial unit in a formation that has other attack helicopters in it, but it can carry an impressive amount of munitions and electronic warfare equipment to boot, essentially multiplying the threat any squadron of helicopters poses with it.

Not only does it risk fewer lives, if any, but it also costs less than both a fully equipped attack helicopter and the trained personnel required to man it, making it a relative no-brainer for the future if it lives up to its promise.

The trade is meant to be obvious: field enough autonomous wingmen cheaply enough that losing one is an accounting event, not a casualty notification. This is the same "affordable mass" doctrine Anduril and others have been pushing into the fighter world through Collaborative Combat Aircraft programs.

The Thunder simply extends it from fixed-wing fast jets down into Army attack aviation, which is arguably where Ukraine has shown the need is most acute.

It is also, tellingly, a teaming concept rather than a replacement one. Anduril is not claiming Thunder makes the Apache obsolete; it is claiming Thunder keeps the Apache relevant by absorbing the parts of a mission most likely to get a crew killed, while the humans stay farther back and make the decisions.

Anduril's Collaborative Combat Aircraft ambitions are already on display: a drone it designed recently launched an AMRAAM air-to-air missile at a digital target, with human pilots still firmly in control even as the device's autonomy continues to grow.

The Thunder is today a full-scale mockup with a 2027 first-flight target, meaning some details are subject to change. But even as Anduril Industries remains tight-lipped about cost and potential customers, the rotorcraft appears linked to Britain's Project NYX Apache-wingman program, for which the UK arm of the defense contractor has already been shortlisted.

• There was very little mention of the Samsung Galaxy Ring at this year's Unpacked presentation
• Nevertheless, it sounds like a Galaxy Ring 2 is coming
• I interviewed Annika Bizon, VP of Product and Marketing for Mobile Experience, who gave me the inside scoop

What a day! We've just seen Samsung's vision for the future of wearables at Samsung Galaxy Unpacked, including its AR glasses and the new Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 and Watch 9.

However, conspicuous by its absence was the next iteration of Samsung's smallest wearable, the Samsung Galaxy Ring. While Samsung did confirm the Samsung Galaxy Ring's sleep apnea detection functionality was getting a coveted FDA certification — a significant badge of quality — very little else was said about the Ring, or its next generation.

While the silence has led some to believe that the Ring might be a one-and-done device, people are still passionate about the smart ring form factor. After all, the Oura Ring 5 was released this year, so I thought Samsung would be looking to follow up its smash-hit Galaxy Ring with a Galaxy Ring 2.

While it didn't appear in this year's presentation, it seems that a successor is, indeed, on the way. During an interview with Samsung's VP of Product and Marketing for Mobile Experience, Annika Bizon, I asked if there was any word on a potential Galaxy Ring 2.

"I will say yes, we are looking at the future of Ring, watch this space," Bizon told me. "It will definitely form part of our future portfolio of wearables."

I noted that Bizon was wearing a Samsung Galaxy Ring as we were speaking. "Well, I love it because it's discreet health," she said. "It tells me some of the things I need to know and when I put my watch back on, they'll work together."

There was definitely a "yes" in there, and the remark about the future portfolio suggests a new device, as well as a follow-up to the existing one, could be in the works. And the Galaxy Ring has certainly got fans inside Samsung's executive team.

Besides, Samsung aggressively pursuing certifications for the first-generation Ring shows it remains committed to investing time and money into its smallest wearable form factor. The short segment at Unpacked felt like a reminder that yes, the Ring exists, and there's more on the way.

Even though it's a mere tidbit compared to all the big news we got at the event, this is exciting stuff for fans of the best smart rings. The recent announcement of the blood-pressure monitoring startup Signal Ring from ex-Head of Android Tom Moss shows that tech companies are still pushing the limits of what smart rings can do.

Computing is so ubiquitous that we often see more than one in most households, including laptops, desktops, all-in-ones, smartphones, tablets, and so on. But there was once a time when that certainly wasn't the case. In that context, some comments made by industry stalwarts of the past may appear like massive miscalculations.

The late Ken Olsen was the co-founder and CEO of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), a major company in the mid-20th century that produced a series of minicomputers over the decades in which it operated until its decline in 1998.

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.

Despite being a key part of the computer industry, Olsen was adamant that the computer was something isolated to the enterprise — delivering his infamous comments in 1977 at a convention of the World Future Society. There are, however, two very important caveats.

Firstly, computers at the time were either gigantic mainframes or minicomputers that needed specialized staff to manage. Secondly, Olsen later claimed his words were taken completely out of context.

Olsen claimed he wasn't referring to the sort of computers we see today in homes like desktop PCs or laptops, but actually the then-futuristic proposal of a master computer that would automate different functions around the house.

What the executive was referring to was what we now understand as the smart home. However, regardless of the context, his comments still missed the mark — as the rise of smart home technology has been a very exciting development during the 21st century.

That said, the vision of a fully automated and intelligent home has proven massively prohibitive, partially due to cost, partially due to hardware, and finally due to slow interoperability and integration. That latter element, however, is finally something that's been changing thanks to the Matter smart home standard.