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SpaceX is nothing if not ambitious.

Elon Musk 's company just filed an application with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to operate a 100,000-member constellation of "Gen3" satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO).

This will presumably be an updated version of SpaceX's Starlink broadband network, according to astronomer and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell, who reported the news via X today (July 9).

SpaceX have filed for a 100,00 satellite "Gen3 NGSO" system. Presumably Starlink Gen3, but they don't call it that. The sats are 2000-2500 kg, area 300 to 400 sq m. Orbits 320-480 km at various inclinations. Have added to my page at https://t.co/uFI9aoSNnM July 9, 2026

The new plan would dramatically expand Starlink's already extensive orbital footprint. SpaceX currently operates nearly 10,800 of the internet spacecraft in LEO and has FCC approval for about 4,000 more.

And each individual Gen3 satellite will be considerably larger than its predecessors. According to McDowell, SpaceX's FCC application states that each one will weigh 4,400 to 5,500 pounds (2,000 to 2,500 kilograms) and cover an area of 3,230 to 4,300 square feet (300 to 400 square meters) with its solar arrays extended.

For perspective: The Starlink satellite version that SpaceX is launching these days, known as the V2 Mini, weighs about 1,760 pounds (800 kg) and covers about 1,250 square feet (116 square meters), according to SpaceflightNow .

SpaceX launches V2 Minis aboard its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, generally in fleets of 29 satellites apiece. The Gen3 is so big, however, that it will probably need to fly on Starship , the giant, super-heavy-lift rocket that SpaceX is developing to help get people to the moon and Mars , among other tasks.

Starlink Gen3 isn't even the biggest satellite assemblage that SpaceX is cooking up: The company also aims to build a million-strong AI megaconstellation called Starmind.

"Launching a constellation of a million satellites that operate as orbital data centers is a first step towards becoming a Kardashev II-level civilization , one that can harness the sun's full power, while supporting AI-driven applications for billions of people today and ensuring humanity's multi-planetary future," Musk wrote in a February 2026 update about the planned AI constellation.

A number of other companies, including Amazon and Blue Origin , are also building out large constellations in LEO, or plan to do so in the near future.

A variety of people and organizations have objected to how crowded Earth orbit is becoming, voicing concerns about the effects on astronomical observations , wildlife, Earth's atmosphere and humanity's enjoyment of the night sky, among other issues.

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No hit or no damage playthroughs have become an increasingly common badge of honor online, especially in precise, timing-driven action games like the Souls series. But what about in a dice rolling, stats and RNG-heavy CRPG? Davey Gunface on YouTube not only proved it's possible, he did so in perhaps the most tedious circumstances: Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous' Unfair difficulty.

WotR and its predecessor, Kingmaker, are two all-timer CRPGs for me . But even die-hard fans recommend them with caveats. Wrath, especially, is kinda bullshit. Once every two to five hours or so across its marathon runtime, a guy who by all rights should be a miniboss is just out of nowhere the strongest guy who ever lived. It's like when Battle Beast first shows up as some guy's goon in Invincible and he solos all the strongest heroes of earth.

Crazy difficulty spikes, Armor Classes through the stratosphere, save-or-die spells, level drain, damage immunities, literal minutes-long hard crowd control, Wrath embraces these and more. Its normal difficulty will make a Baldur's Gate 3 Honour Mode veteran sweat a bit, while completing the "Core" difficulty is a real CRPG achievement in my book⁠—you should get your picture on a wall at Owlcat HQ like you finished a Paul Bunyan Big Boy meal at a roadside steakhouse. The "Unfair" difficulty? It's unfair.

I can only assume Gunface allowed for reloading in this challenge due to the random chance and marathon nature of a WotR playthrough⁠—it really is, consistently, a 100+ hour deal. Gunface set the challenge of getting through without taking any avoidable damage. There are a few instances of story or cutscene-derived, unavoidable hits that just feel unsporting.

He took the definition of "avoidable" to some admirable extremes though, like managing to sidestep a "supposed to lose" fight at the beginning of the game by uncovering a rare sequence gated as the failure state of a specific moral choice. That's pure RPGs, baby.

WotR, like Neverwinter Nights: Swordflight , already sits at the end stage of optimization and powergaming for a Core playthrough. Unfair, let alone hitless, demands you escalate to primeval outer reaches of buildcrafting psychosis.

One example: Gunface got through WotR's infamous Shield Maze prologue with the popular Unfair tactic of sacrificing your starter companions' builds, multiclassing them in ways that are ruinous in the long run, but life-saving in the hyper-specific hell of levels 2 through 4. The one-shot master Rowdy Rogue came in handy, and everybody loves giving companions Lann or Wenduag a Sabertooth Tiger pet.

Across the whole of the game, Gunface opted for a Human (gotta get that extra feat) Witch of the Veil 10 / Loremaster 9 / Rowdy Rogue 1, parlaying the Witch's game-changing early hexes but booboo spell list into the Loremaster prestige class' expanded spellbook. He also picked the "eviler than the bad guys" Swarm That Walks path, making for a fun pairing with his custom portrait, a picture of his dog.

Truly, this is a "beyond the impossible" sort of challenge, one better suited for precise, input-driven games where you actually control whether you get hit or not. Doing so in a game built on d20 rolls feels avant garde. Gunface's full video is a three-hour long runner if you're looking for something to come back to over a few days, and you can also follow him on YouTube or support via Patreon .

2026 games : All the upcoming games

Best PC games : Our all-time favorites

Free PC games : Freebie fest

Best FPS games : Finest gunplay

Best RPGs : Grand adventures

Best co-op games : Better together

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I test a lot of espresso machines here at TechRadar — over a dozen a year — and so far 2026 has delivered a particularly impressive crop. Whether you're looking for your first ever coffee maker or are a seasoned pro hunting for the perfect premium brewer, there's an option for you.

There are so many new espresso machines, in fact, that you might be spoilt for choice, which is where I come in. To help make your decision easier, I've rounded up this collection of the three best machines we've tested this year. Each one has been through our rigorous review process, and received a score of at least four and a half stars out of five.

If you can't see something that quite suits your needs, take a look at our complete roundup of the best espresso machines you can buy today, and the best Nespresso machines if you prefer your morning brew in pod form.

Philips Café Aromis

Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Release date: March 2026

Score: 5/5

This espresso machine (the Philips Café Aromis 8000 Series, to give it its full name) is a premium coffee maker that looks stunning, makes sublime coffee, and is fun to use as well. It has a menu of 50 drinks — hot and cold — and is astonishingly quiet in use too thanks to cleverly designed noise shielding.

Its milk system is particularly impressive, producing different textures to suit the type of drink you're making, and because the milk never enters the body of the machine itself, it's a piece of cake to keep clean. Just detach the carafe, disassemble it into its three hard plastic components, and wash them in the top drawer of your dishwasher. There are separate carafes for hot and cold milk, and they both work equally well with dairy or plant-based equivalents.

Espresso machines with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connectivity are quite common, but after connecting your phone, usually all you get is a simple instruction manual. Not here. The Philips Home app is styled like an AI chatbot, and asks you a series of questions about your beans and taste preferences to help tailor the brew setting to your liking. It's certainly not cheap, but it's a superb espresso machine that earned a full five stars.

Read our full Philips Café Aromis review

Philips Baristina

Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Release date: February 2026

Score: 5/5

Philips has been really nailing it when it comes to espresso machines this year. The Baristina is very different to the Café Aromis, but if you're new to the world of speciality coffee, or just want something reasonably affordable, it's the better choice.

This is the smallest and cheapest bean-to-cup coffee maker I've ever tested, and it's so easy to use, it's a great option for anyone thinking of making the switch from coffee capsules. Just load your beans in the top, fill the water tank, push in the empty portafilter handle, and slide it to the right. The Baristina will grind the perfect dose of coffee into the basket, tamp it down, then slide the whole handle to the left and pull the shot for you.

It's a piece of cake, and much easier to clean than a typical automatic espresso machine because there's no moisture or debris building up inside an enclosed case. The only drawback is that it can't steam milk (unless you pick up a bundle with the standalone milk frother), but Philips has just launched an updated version — the Baristina Latte — that solves that particular issue. I'm very much looking forward to testing it

Read our full Philips Baristina review

Meraki Espresso Machine Gen 2

Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Future Release date: March 2026

Score: 4.5/5

The Meraki Espresso Machine Gen 2 (available direct from Meraki in the US, and from Bella Barista in the UK) is the most stylish coffee maker we've tested so far this year, with its satin finish, chrome and wood accents, pivoting touchscreen display, and separate 'towers' for its twin boilers, water tank, and bean hopper. It's huge, but if you've got the space, it's worth every centimeter.

This is a manual espresso machine, but is packed with thoughtful features that make achieving a delicious brew that little bit easier. For example, there are built-in scales beneath the grinder and grouphead to help you grind exactly the right dose of beans, then weigh your extracted coffee and stop the pump at precisely the right time. There's a temperature sensor to help you avoid scalding your milk, and if you really want a helping hand, you can scan a code on a bag of Meraki's own coffee beans, and the machine will adjust its own settings accordingly.

The standout feature, though, is its dual boiler, which is something we rarely see in a home espresso machine. "Not only does it produce exceedingly well-extracted espresso over and over again, it easily froths a range of milks without losing pressure or cooling down," said our reviewer Josh Russell.

Read our full Meraki Espresso Machine Gen 2 review

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The Mac mini has emerged as an affordable system for agentic workloads

Apple has seen "incredible demand" for the Mac mini and Mac Studio

Apple silicon can handle an agentic AI while other architectures use a GPU and CPU

If you’re looking for the best way to explore and deploy agentic AI without breaking the budget, the Mac mini might be just what you’re looking for.

Apple’s Doug Brooks has expressed enthusiasm for how the Mac mini and Mac Studio desktop computers are capable of handling agentic AI tasks, thanks to Apple silicon, the ARM-based SoC that the company has introduced over the past half decade.

Success with local AI on these machines has been attributed to design choices made before the arrival of advanced LLMs, with the evolution of Apple’s Neural Engine highlighted as a key factor.

How the Mac mini is ideal for agentic AI

The Mac Studio is also suited to agentic AI (Image credit: Future) Brooks is the senior product manager of Apple silicon, and referred to the “incredible demand” for Mac minis and Mac Studios when speaking to The Deep View before WWDC 2026.

Describing the Mac mini as an “amazing system” that can “tap into the strengths of Apple silicon and unified memory in a very power-efficient way, and increasingly they're delivering compelling price-performance as well.”

The price point of a Mac mini – compared to the more expensive Mac Studio – makes it particularly suited to teams exploring agentic AI but without the budget to pay for tokens and larger systems.

Neural Engine technology dates back to the A11 chip, and its evolution and inclusion within the current generation of Apple chips, and its high-performance, power-efficient compute processes are pivotal in delivering machine learning to the desktop.

As many AI tools were available first on the Mac (or released exclusively for macOS), it seems that upgrading to the latest Mac mini or switching from Windows has been instrumental in demand.

Mac mini: amazing for AI

Apple’s work on AI has seen deployment in everyday use across computers, tablets, and smartphones, and the company has been a leading exponent of hybrid AI, where an agent can “decide what needs to happen locally and what needs to happen in the cloud based on the workload.”

“For agentic workloads, people often want a system that's under their control, isolated from their primary machine, and capable of running 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

But it is the strength of the Apple Mac mini and Apple Studio – as well Apple’s notebooks – in handling AI that seems to have enthused Brooks the most. He cites security and economics as concerns for developers and creators who are now realising that they can handle AI workloads sitting at their desk – whether using a Mac mini or something more powerful.

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An image has appeared, apparently for the first time, showing a Chinese J-15T carrier-based fighter launching while carrying four anti-ship missiles. The photo offers the clearest indication yet that China’s rapidly evolving carrier force is overcoming one of its longstanding operational constraints: getting heavily loaded strike fighters airborne from its flattops.

The image, at the top of this story, shows a J-15T in full afterburner moments before leaving the deck of the Fujian , the first People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) carrier equipped with catapults . The fighter is armed with four YJ-83K anti-ship missiles — double the number previously seen carried by a J-15 — amounting to a weapons load of roughly 6,400 pounds before accounting for any additional stores that may not be visible.

Previously, in fact, it seems that the latest J-15T version has only ever been seen with a single YJ-83K training round, while the aircraft was still in prototype form.

Two views of a prototype J-15T carrying a single YJ-83K training round and an inert PL-15 medium-range air-to-air missile. via Chinese internet

via Chinese internet

The YJ-83K is a widely used subsonic anti-ship missile, broadly equivalent to the U.S.-made AGM-84 Harpoon . The radar-guided, turbojet-powered weapon has a reported range of around 112 miles and is armed with a 360-pound high-explosive, semi-armor-piercing warhead. The YJ-83K is a sea-skimming missile cruising at an altitude of 65-100 feet, before dropping down to 16-24 feet during the terminal phase. Most significantly, each of these weapons weighs around 1,600 pounds.

A YJ-83K anti-ship missile under the wing of a STOBAR J-15 version. via Chinese internet

The very reason behind the development of the J-15T was to maximize the potential of Flanker operations from the Fujian , which is equipped with an electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS), and subsequent carriers. As such, the J-15T is primarily distinguished from the original J-15 in being equipped for catapult takeoff but assisted recovery (CATOBAR) operations, as well as short takeoff but assisted recovery (STOBAR) operations.

Videos provide a comparison of a STOBAR J-15 carrier launch and a CATOBAR J-15T launch from Fujian:

空母福建のカタパルト発進するJ-15Tと空母山東のスキージャンプ発進するJ-15の比較 pic.twitter.com/2SrUkIZdU8

— OedoSoldier (@OedoSoldier) September 22, 2025

The previous two PLAN aircraft carriers, the Liaoning and Shandong , both employ ‘ski-jump’ takeoff ramps to launch fixed-wing STOBAR aircraft.

As we have discussed in the past, the primary benefit of the J-15T is its ability to be catapult-launched from a carrier with a heavier payload of fuel and weapons. After all, the Flanker airframe has always been able to carry impressive fuel and weapons loads, but this has been strictly limited when configured for STOBAR operations. This is something that has hampered Russian Navy carrier operations , as much as Chinese ones.

Another STOBAR J-15 armed with a YJ-83K, on the deck of the Liaoning . via Chinese internet

Also significant is the fact that the J-15T has started to introduce domestically produced WS-10H turbofans in place of the Russian-made AL-31F engines previously found on production J-15s.

One of the prototype J-15Ts fitted with WS-10H engines. via Chinese internet

In the past, it appears that the heaviest loads seen carried by STOBAR J-15s launched from the Liaoning or Shandong comprised two YJ-83Ks and four air-to-air missiles, or, for air defense, four PL-12 medium-range air-to-air missiles and two short-range PL-8B air-to-air missiles.

Regardless, the fact that J-15Ts are now launching from the carrier with weapons loads of around 6,400 pounds is significant.

As well as increasing the anti-shipping potential of the J-15T, the same payload could be translated into additional fuel or other weapons loads.

Among the other weapons options for the jet are the more advanced PL-10 short-range and PL-15 medium-range air-to-air missiles . The J-15T has also been noted with the long-range YJ-15 anti-ship missile, and with a ‘buddy’ refueling pod. Other versions of the YJ-83K that could find their way onto the J-15 include the improved YJ-83KH, which features an imaging-infrared seeker and extended range.

A poor-quality but interesting image of a J-15T carrying a pair of YJ-15 anti-ship missiles. via Chinese internet

The ability for the J-15T to launch from a catapult-equipped carrier with a heavier payload doesn’t just impact the potential of the strike fighter. It will also translate to the two-seat carrier-compatible J-15 versions, intended to take on additional roles. Chief among these is the CATOBAR-capable J-15DT electronic warfare aircraft , intended to operate in a role similar to the U.S. Navy’s EA-18G Growler . With its array of external jamming pods, the J-15DT also needs to launch (and recover) at heavier weights to make the most of its potential.

A J-15DT catches the wire onboard the aircraft carrier Fujian . via Chinese internet

There are also rumors concerning a CATOBAR version of the two-seat J-15S, which could serve as a carrier trainer and/or as a multirole strike platform equivalent to the F/A-18F. Here, again, the EMALS will greatly enhance its capabilities.

Beyond marking another milestone in the rapid evolution of China’s carrier aviation capabilities, the new image suggests that the combination of the J-15T and the catapult-equipped carrier Fujian is beginning to deliver the kind of fully armed launch performance that its ski-jump carriers have long struggled to achieve.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

The post Chinese J-15 Fighter Seen Launching From A Carrier With Four Anti-Ship Missiles For First Time appeared first on TWZ .