Picture: ExtremeTech

Up until the present, the various paintjobs of our phones have existed primarily as a means of personalization. In the near future, they could well be the way that our phones are charged.

A new study by the UK’s University of Sheffield is investigating the possibility of spray-painted solar cells which could be used to power anything from smartphones to electric cars.

While the energy generating effectiveness of paint-on solar cells was just one percent a couple of years ago, Sheffield University currently gets about 11 percent efficiency versus 19 percent at optimal performance.

Although Samsung’s commercials often mock Apple and its devices, the South Korean company has been known to use Apple products as its inspiration. In fact, it has been so inspired by iOS devices in the past that it was recently found guilty of ripping them off and forced to cough up $119 million in damages.

That doesn’t appear to have deterred Samsung from copying again, though. Leaked images of its upcoming Galaxy Alpha smartphone suggest the device could be the company’s biggest iPhone knockoff to date.

While most of Square-Enix’s games for mobile tend to be ports of the developer’s past hits, it also occasionally releases original games too — often with spectacularly great results.

The latest of these games is set to Chaos Rings III, a sequel to 2012’s Chaos Rings II — coming to Android, iOS and PlayStation Vita this winter. Announced over the weekend on Famitsu, the game is set to arrive in Japan on October 16.

One of the world’s top tech companies is suing Samsung for patent violations, only this time its not Apple.

Microsoft announced this afternoon that it filed a lawsuit against Samsung in the U.S. District Court of Southern District of New York, for not paying up on cross-licensed intellectual property from Microsoft that its been using in smartphones since 2011.

Dong Nguyen’s runaway viral hit mobile game, Flappy Bird, is back in a new form, but this time it’s only on Fire TV, Amazon’s answer to the Roku and Apple TV devices.

The new game, titled Flappy Birds: Family, is available now on the Amazon App Store, and seems to only work on the Fire TV as of this moment.

The game seems to have the same basic gameplay as the original (tap or click a button to flap the bird’s wings and avoid pipes), but adds ghosts as a new obstacle and a new multi-player feature.

“Flappy Birds now are on Amazon Fire TV,” says the app description, “with incredible new features: Person vs Person mode, more obstacles, more fun and still very hard. Enjoy playing the game at home (not breaking your TV) with your family and friends.”