If you're looking for a MacBook Air, Ivy Bridge notebook, or HDTV sized 46 inches or larger, July may be the month to open your wallet. It's hard to escape Apple's TV ads for its MacBook Pro with Retina display, but searchers looking for a deal on a Mac portable more likely will find one for the older version of the Pro's sibling, the MacBook Air, according to DealNews's monthly "Best and Worth" report scheduled for publication Monday. "While we did see one deal shave $105 off the Retina's list price, chances are any deals we see in July will be modest," DealNewsreportes. However, the site is optimistic about deals on older MacBook Airs with Intel's Sandy Bridge processor. Prices for a basic unit with 11.6-inch display, 2GB of RAM, and a 64GB solid state drive have hit an all-time low of around $740, while prices for the 13.3-inch model will probably hover around $1000 during the month. When Apple introduced its Retina MacBook Pro in June, it refreshed its Air line as well, which has resulted in a decline in the price of the model of the ultralight notebook introduced last July. "So if you don't mind having a generation-old MacBook Air (which is still just one year old!), July will be your month," DealNews notes. Shoppers for PC laptops can also expect to find deals during the month. Bargains on notebooks with 15-inch displays based on Intel's Ivy Bridge processor will be around $600, DealNews predicts. Ivy Bridge notebook prices will be influenced by Intel's introduction of more affordable versions of the processor in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, the price of dreadnought notebooks designed to act as desktop replacements appear to have reached a pricing plateau. Deals at around $800 will be the norm during July, DealNews notes. Although the summer historically isn't the best time to buy a digital Single Lens Reflex camera, DealNews detects some softness in the DSLR market that will translate into July deals. During the holiday season, the shopping site typically sees a spike in the number of DSLR deals picked by its editors. The same is true at the beginning of the year, when new camera models are announced. "But lately we've been seeing a surprising number of all-time low deals on consumer SLRs," DealNews reports. The trend began in May and carried on in June, and DealNews expects it to continue into July. Overall, HDTV prices will remain stable during the summer, but for brand name 46-inch HDTVs, those prices have stabilized at all-time lows. Those low prices will continue through July, DealNews says. Name-brand HDTV bargains for 46-to-47-inch sets should be had at around $500. "Anything at or below $490 is an all-time low for this category," DealNews says. For deal hunters looking for Christmas in July, the price-watching site cautions shoppers to beware of merchants declaring Black Friday sales during the summer months. DealNews acknowledges that these are enticing, but warns shoppers to be wary: "few of these Black Friday sales will feature the rock-bottom pricing that consumers come to expect from the 'darkest' of shopping days."

As if it’s not bad enough that within a few years thousands of drones will be flying in U.S. airspace, now research shows terrorists may be able to turn them into weapons. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin found that by spoofing a GPS receiver on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) anyone with the right tools and know-how can take over control of a drone and make it do their bidding. Their findings were first reported by Fox News. GPS jammers are most commonly used to mess with tracking or navigation systems, as may have been the case when Iran took down a U.S. spy drone in December. Spoofers, on the other hand, are far more advanced and can control the navigation of a drone via distorted information that looks authentic. Using a $1000 spoofer with a signal more powerful than the one coming from satellites, Professor Todd Humphreys and his team at the Radionavigation Laboratory were able to hack into a small surveillance drone and change its route and behavior. Their research also suggests detection methods for spoofing attacks. “In five or ten years you have 30,000 drones in the airspace,” Humphreys told Fox. “Each one of these could be a potential missile used against us.” Indeed, under the Federal Aviation Administration Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, signed into law in February, the FAA has to allow the use of UAVs by a wide range of private, commercial, and government organizations. These entities could do things such as track fugitives, patrol borders, scout property, transport things, manage traffic, monitor crops, manage land, and more.

Privacy Concerns

Privacy advocates have raised alarms and say that drones equipped with high-tech imaging and listening capabilities will be able to conduct unprecedented surveillance of civilians. In a letter sent to the FAA in April U.S. Reps. Edward Markey (D-Massachusetts) and Joe Barton (R-Texas) note that many drones can carry video cameras, infrared thermal imagers, radar, and wireless network sniffers. "The surveillance power of drones is amplified when the information from onboard sensors is used in conjunction with facial recognition, behavior analysis, license plate recognition," they wrote. All of that alone is enough to make a person shudder, but the notion that thousands of drones flying around could be hacked by malefactors is truly terrible. Humphreys says the government needs to do something about the threat now; if the vulnerability is left unchecked drones could be rerouted to crash into planes or buildings. One thing is certain, U.S. airways will be getting busier. Check out this map that shows the approximate locations of current and planned Department of Defense unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) activities inside the U.S. In addition to the privacy and safety concerns involved with these things, one has to wonder about the noise pollution created by 30,000 extra aircraft buzzing around. An official with the Miami-Dade Police Department told the National Journal, “Our drone looks like a flying garbage can, and it sounds like a weed whacker. This thing is very, very noisy. It wouldn’t allow you to sneak up on anybody.”