Coating objects with a layer so black it makes them look like flat holes in reality is potentially important for developing stealth weapons. But we all know the coolest implementation would be an iPhone that would look like a black splotch on the table.
We are now a step closer to this reality, as British scientists have developed a new material called Vantablack.
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In case you haven’t noticed, Google is not at all happy about having to sift through thousands of different takedown requests from citizens in Europe who want to be “forgotten” in its search results. In an editorial written for The Guardian, Google chief legal officer David Drummond says that Google has so far received 70,000 takedown requests and they aren’t all from some poor kid whose most embarrassing moment got memorialized by a viral YouTube video.
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We got a pretty good taste of what’s to come from Bungie’s new massively multiplayer shooter during the Destiny First-Look Alpha, but the public beta will reportedly feature even more for gamers. A Reddit user uploaded an image over the weekend which appears to reveal key details about the beta, including all the content that players can look forward to when it launches later this week.
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There are many interesting projects on Kickstarter, but few of them can say they managed to reel in more than $4.1 million. That’s more than 80 times what Ryan Grepper, the mastermind behind the Coolest cooler, wanted to raise in order to make a smart device that knows many interesting tricks in addition to simply keeping beverages cold.
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Could future smartphone batteries be made even better using plain old beach sand? PhoneArena points us to a new study published at Nature.com that shows using beach sand as the primary ingredient for a smartphone battery’s anode could yield considerable improvements in terms of power efficiency.
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Have you found yourself frustrated by Verizon’s customer service? Well don’t worry, there’s now an easy way to get Verizon to cater to your every whim — you just have to get more than 1 million followers on Twitter.
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For nearly two years, Apple has been dedicated to building the only mobile maps app you’ll ever need on your iOS device, but with every improvement to Google Maps, it becomes more and more difficult to convert. This past week, Google Maps was updated on iPhone and iPad to include search results with descriptions overlaid on the map, the ability to quickly switch between the map view and list view, reservations and events from Gmail labeled on the map and an improved Explore guide. Google Maps on iOS hasn’t quite caught up with its Android or desktop counterparts, but with every additional feature, Google gives iPhone owners another reason to slide that undeletable Maps app into a folder with Newsstand and Passbook.
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A PC release for Grand Theft Auto V has been a long time coming, but all we’ve had since the announcement at E3 2014 is a vague “coming this fall” in place of an actual date. One blundering retailer might have finally let the official date slip though, as PC Gamer noted on Monday. According to a listing on a Danish retailer’s website, Grand Theft Auto V for PC is expected to release on November 14th in Europe.
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The global slowdown in smartphone and tablet unit growth rates has been tough for a variety of vendors, from HTC to Apple. But for Samsung, the evaporation of mobile division revenue growth is particularly galling, because the company’s winning streak was so long. Two years after HTC’s sales growth stalled and several quarters after Apple’s growth petered out, Samsung sailed on.
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Popcorn Time, also known as Netflix for Pirates, also known as a nightmare for Hollywood and its fight against piracy, has just gotten better for users, or at least for those people who happen to have an Android device. Popcorn Time announced on its blog that it has updated its Android app, adding Chromecast streaming support to the mix.
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