New Technology in 2026: Brain Chips and Space Missions

Elon Musk says his company Neuralink is aiming to restore partial sight to fully blind patients in 2026. The company plans to test its newest and most powerful implant, Blindsight, in humans early this year. The chip will be wirelessly connected to an external video camera and implanted into the brain’s visual cortex. Bypassing the eyes, it is designed to generate the perception of vision based on what the camera captures, even for people born blind. The resulting vision will be low resolution in early tests but will hopefully get better over time, Musk says, though some experts worry he is overpromising on the quality of the brain-computer interface.

Contents

Brain Chip Helps Blind People See

Foldable iPhones Arrive

Double Rendezvous in Deep Space

Sending Humans Back to the Moon

An AI Supercomputer the Size of a City

It’s like the 1990s all over again! You will soon be able to punctuate your angry conversations by slamming your iPhone shut. Apple plans to bring a foldable version of its phone to market in late 2026, aiming not just to catch up with the competition but improve on some longstanding issues with existing popular foldable phones. The iPhone Fold, as it’s called, will have an inner hinge mechanism that leads to a less visible crease in the display, the company claims. The device is expected to cost at least US $2,000—that’s $800 more than some 2025 base iPhone prices. The phone will have to compete with strong rivals that have already cultivated model loyalty, like Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold series.

In July 2026, a Chinese sample-return mission is expected to rendezvous with 469219 Kamoʻoalewa, a near-Earth asteroid. The mission, called Tianwen-2, will also use instruments that include multiple spectrometers and cameras, a magnetometer, and a dust analyzer to collect data about the asteroid. After more than six months of study, Tianwen-2 will leave the asteroid and drop the collected sample down to Earth before heading off to investigate 311P/PanSTARRS, a complicated celestial object that’s part asteroid and part comet.

In another giant leap for mankind, the first crewed mission to the moon since 1972 is scheduled to launch in April 2026. The 10-day flight will usher in NASA’s efforts to have a sustained human presence on the moon by testing hardware and systems for future lunar exploration. This will be the first time a crew assesses the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft for human use. While the astronauts won’t actually land on the moon, they will get as close as 7,400 kilometers from its surface and spend time investigating how near-lunar space travel affects their health.