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Invisibility cloaks are a real thing, wands not so much

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Engineers at the Lawrence Barkley National Laboratory have created a super thin cloak that can bend light around objects, rendering them invisible. The catch, however, is that it only works on a micro scale for now so any prank ideas you had can be put on hold.

In tests the invisibility cloak used metamaterials to curve light around an object the size of a few biological cells. The difference between this cloak and previous attempts is that it can disguise any shaped object, and works in air. "This is the first time a 3D object of arbitrary shape has been cloaked from visible light," said Xiang Zhang, who worked on the device.

"Our ultra-thin cloak now looks like a coat. It is easy to design and implement, and is potentially scalable for hiding macroscopic objects."

That last part is what excites us. A full-blown invisibility cloak could have plenty of real-world applications aside from pranking, notably the military. Wearable tech is coming to the battlefield, would invisibility cloaks be a step too far? I mean, they’ve already got invisible tanks (well, sort of).

Sony hints PlayStation VR could cost as much as a PS4

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Sony has had a busy week. Not only did it rename Project Morpheus as PlayStation VR, it also hinted the price of its upcoming headset.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Andrew House said that the PlayStation VR "will be priced as a new gaming platform", but wouldn't give any actual numbers.

Going by how much the PS4 cost when it first launched in 2013, we could be looking at about Rs. 40,000. That’s not too surprising for a new product but it’s worth noting that, if you don’t already own a PS4, you need one of those too. Still, the HTC Vive is rumoured to have the biggest price tag of all the headsets. 

House also said that the plan is to start with at least 10 launch titles. That shouldn’t be difficult, either. Sony already has 10 playable titles being shown off at the Tokyo Game Show this week, including first person shooter Rigs: Machine Combat League, as well as Final Fantasy XIV from Square Enix.

"VR rewrites the rule book on how you can create games," said House. "You're seeing a large amount of interest and work happening among smaller teams, because it's possible to create something in VR that is very simple but still very magical."

What have you thought of PlayStation VR so far? Let us know in the comments section.

Could Samsung Pay come to other Android phones in the future?

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Samsung Pay is set to be a big focus for the company in the coming months, especially in its launch market of South Korea – but recent comments by the company's bigwigs have hinted that it's going to get a wider run out.

Samsung’s Mobile Head Shin Jong-kyun recently told The Korea Herald that Samsung Pay “will gradually expand", adding:  "the Samsung Pay service is going well, and I think more users will be able to use it,” which could be in reference to it appearing on cheaper phone or possibly being rolled out to other NFC-enabled devices… although without the magnetic stripe abilities that the S6 range are imbued with.

On top of that, Samsung's going to try and make more of us healthy – well, that's what you'd assume its aim was given it's pushing its S Health out to more phones than its own.

It's the first time the S Health app has been made avaliable on other Android manufacturers devices since it launched back on the Galaxy S5 – you can download it here from the Google Play Store.

So with that in mind, the notion of the forthcoming Samsung Pay one day coming to other phones that aren’t from the Korean manufacturer seems more likely.

It’d make sense for the company to have its payment system on the broadest range of devices possible and restricting itself to the limited Samsung owners isn’t going to do that.

It'd also be a better option for the consumer generally as we'd have the choice between Android Pay and Samsung Pay, plus any other alternatives that decide to crop up as well.

On Apple you’re restricted to using just that one payment system, but if there are many other choices across Android it’ll generate some more competition, hopefully spurring some innovation in the area.

Amazon’s new Fire HD tablets are thinner than ever before

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The new Fire HD tablets come in both 8-inch and 10.1-inch Full HD displays that are intended to watch video with the Fire HD 8 allowing 15% more viewing area and the Fire HD 10 offering 22% more viewing area.

Both tablets have pixel resolutions of 1280 x 800 with the Fire HD 8 coming in at 189ppi and the Fire HD 10.1 boasting a disappointing 149ppi.

Each comes with a quad-core processor running up to 1.5GHz – not all that impressive for a tablet – and Amazon claims both are “2x more durable than the latest generation iPad Air.” Whatever that means.

These tablets are thinner than ever before with both coming in at 7.7mm and the 10-inch version is even lighter than the iPad Air at 432g.

Storage on the devices vary with the Fire HD 8 offering 8GB or 16GB of storage with the lower version costing $129.99. Pricing for the 16GB still hasn't been announced.

It's available in black, magenta, blue and tangerine with the black coming on September 30, and the rest launching a week later on October 6.

The Fire HD 10 can be pre-orded today with 16GB or 32GB versions available. The black version will be up for grabs from September 30 and if you want a white one you’ll have to wait until October 30.

On top of that Amazon has also created a new cheap tablet to battle tough competition from entry-level tablets.

It’s called Fire and costs $50 with an actually quite impressive spec. It has a 7-inch IPS display, quad-core processor clocked at 1.3GHz, 128GB microSD support and the latest version of the Fire OS software.

There’s no word on the strength of the camera just yet or how much storage is on the actual device itself – we’re not expecting great things.

You’ll be able to buy the Fire tablet for £49.99 on September 30.

Amazon fans the 4K flames with the new UHD Fire TV

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The new 4K Fire TV will stick to the same price point, just $99.99, but will provide access to the latest Ultra HD content from both Amazon Prime Instant Video and streaming rivals, Netflix.

The new Amazon Fire TV is available for pre-order today and will start shipping on October 5.

It’s also prepping a new Fire TV Stick too, bundling it with the Voice Remote to give Siri a run for her money on the Apple TV side. And that’s going to be a $49.99 device shipping a little later than the new 4K Fire TV on October 22.

Apple TV-beater

The new Amazon Fire TV though is going to be the only one of the two able to rock the latest Ultra HD content, however thin on the ground that might be right now. That’s definitely a feather in its cap with the new Apple TV still only capable of coping with a Full HD 1080p stream.

Amazon is also claiming it's the UK's only 4K Ultra HD streaming media player. That may be true, but with Nvidia's SHIELD box set to arrive very soon it's not going to be on its own for long. It will, however, remain the best value – at just $99.99 the new Amazon Fire TV could be the cheapest way to get 4K content onto the 4K TVs out there without access to the latest versions of Amazon Video or Netflix apps. 

“The team has packed an incredible amount of technology and innovation into a tiny package,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “The new Fire TV includes 4K support, more processing power, great selection, and exclusive features—for less than $99.99. The Fire TV Stick with Voice Remote brings voice search for less than $49.99. These are powerful devices at incredible prices.”

The inclusion of an HEVC encoder in the new Fire TV does though also do good things for non-4K content too. With the Amazon Video app the new device will use the H265 codec to practically halve the bandwidth necessary to stream 1080p content.

That ought to mean more folk than before will be able to enjoy high-definition content as it’s not going to be quite so tough on your connection.