This air-breathing solar panel stores its own electricity, cutting the cost of solar power significantly It's a solar cell! No... it's a rechargeable lithium-air battery! No... wait... it's both: It's the world's first all-in-one solar battery! The new device, developed by Ohio State University, is essentially an air-breathing lithium battery that recharges via a built-in solar cell. This is significant, because one of the biggest problems with wide-scale solar power deployment is that you also need huge banks of batteries to store electricity... ExtremeTech

My coworkers made me use Mac OS 9 for their (and your) amusement  The above is a lightly edited conversation between Senior Reviews Editor Lee Hutchinson and Automotive Editor Jonathan Gitlin in the Ars staff IRC channel on July 22. Using Mac OS 9 did not initially seem like such a "great idea" to me, however. I'm not one for misplaced nostalgia; I have fond memories of installing MS-DOS 6.2.2 on some old hand-me-down PC with a 20MB hard drive at the tender age of 11 or 12, but that doesn't mean I'm interested in trying to do it again. Ars Technica

The unrepentant bootlegger Early in the morning of June 30, 2010, Hana Beshara woke to a sharp rapping on the door of her condo in East Brunswick, N.J. "I heard a bang-bang-bang," she said. "I'm thinking it's, like, Amazon." It wasn't a delivery. It was a team of federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security, wearing bulletproof jackets and carrying guns. She sank into her couch and watched as they went through her belongings, confiscating files, her flat-screen TV, several computers and cellphones... The NY Times

Why video games are so expensive to develop When Activision, a big games publisher, released "Destiny" on September 9th, it was not just covered in the gaming press. Many newspapers commented on the game's eye-watering budget, reported to be around $500m. How could a video game cost half a billion dollars to make? The truth is, it didn't -- Activision hopes that "Destiny" will become the first game in a long-running franchise, and $500m is the amount the firm has set aside to make that happen. The Economist

Bill Gates: Bitcoin Highlights the Utility of Digital Money During an interview on Bloomberg TV's "Street Smart" today, Bill Gates responded to new questions about bitcoin and its potential to bring innovation to the payments industry. The technology advisor at Microsoft, founder of theBill & Melinda Gates Foundation and recently crowned richest man in the world, in turn, provided short and somewhat muddled responses, though Gates addressed bitcoin more specifically than he has in the past. CoinDesk

Observing Shellshock attacks in the real world A look at some of the Shellshock-related reports from the past week makes it seem as if attackers are flooding networks with cyberattacks targeting the vulnerability in Bash that was disclosed last week. While the attackers haven't wholesale adopted the flaw, there have been quite a few attacks---but the reality is that attackers are treating the flaw as just one of many methods available in their tool kits. Dice

Maxwell's Dynamic Super Resolution explored One of the more intriguing capabilities Nvidia introduced with the GeForce GTX 970 and 980 is a feature called Dynamic Super Resolution, or DSR, for short. DSR is a way for a fast GPU to offer improved image quality on a lower-resolution display. Nvidia bills it as a means of getting 4K quality on a 2K display. That sounds a little too good to be true, but still, my interest is piqued. The Tech Report

Self-awareness, interactivity, and Metal Gear's three walls Minutes after he climbs out of the water on Shadow Moses Island, Solid Snake is given an impossible mission: press the Select button when your phone rings. Colonel Roy Campbell outlines the very important mission to stop the terrorists from terrorising by any sneaky means necessary, then matter-of-factly educates Snake on operating an imaginary video game controller. Electric Phantasms

Grooveshark speaks out as it prepares to appeal copyright lawsuit Days after a US judge ruled against online music service Grooveshark in a lawsuit brought by music labels, the company has issued a statement disagreeing with the decision and declaring its intent to appeal. Earlier in the week, Grooveshark had said it was looking into the possibility of an appeal, but the company now says it is "preparing for the appeal process." The Next Web

Why can't Apple decrypt your iPhone? Last week I wrote about Apple's new default encryption policy for iOS 8. Since that piece was intended for general audiences, I mostly avoided technical detail. But since some folks (and apparently the Washington Post!) are still wondering about the nitty-gritty details of Apple's design might work, I thought it might be helpful to sum up what we know and noodle about what we don't. Matthew Green

How hackers accidentally sold a pre-release XBox One to the FBI Earlier this week, an indictment was unsealed outlining a long list of charges against a group of men accused of running a three-year hacking spree that stole intellectual property from gaming companies. Dylan Wheeler, 19, of Perth said in an interview Thursday he was a member of the group, and is one of two unnamed co-conspirators in the indictment. Computerworld

The cargo cult of game mechanics There's been a lot of fuss about gaming and gaming culture lately, in particular the nature of gaming journalism. Don't worry, I'm so not sticking my face into that particular beehive. However, I do agree the conversation around gaming is crap, so instead I'm posting the kind of opinion piece I wish I'd see on credible gaming sites, as someone who actually knows how the sausage is made. Acko

FCC puts Comcast and Time Warner merge up on hold In a public letter to both the Time Warner and Comcast, FCC said that they are holding the merge up deal that was made in between them. Comcast and Time Warner, together control most of the Internet services in the country. However, the companies said that they are in different regions and are not going to suppress the competition. The Westside Story

The problems with Destiny's multiplayer Destiny has received mixed reviews for a number of reasons: a forced story, repetitive action, and a plenitude of other, often-contradictory, statements. Rather than spending the last week playing through the story (I've only made it halfway through), I've spent a ridiculous amount of time in the player versus player (PVP) arena, The Crucible. Paste Magazine

A year after the death of Silk Road, darknet markets are booming It's been one year since the FBI shut down Silk Road, the granddaddy of darknet marketplaces, and arrested the alleged main Silk Road admin Ross William Ulbricht* (or, as he was known online, Dread Pirate Roberts). Silk Road users who navigated to the darknet site on October 2, 2013, found this instead... The Atlantic