Battery life in our smartphones and tablets is something that needs drastic improvement, but it looks like we see the light at the end of the tunnel with some new technology thanks to researchers out of Stanford.

These researchers have developed a new lithium battery that could double smartphone and tablet battery life, something that enables denser, more efficient lithium within the battery's anode. This is done by using a nanoscopic carbon shield that keeps the unstable chemical stable, but when uncontrolled, drains the battery life much faster.

The result of this is that we have a battery that lasts much longer, but will not degrade as quickly, and on top of that - it will be much safer. Stanford's Steven Chu, who was previously the US Secretary of Energy, says that smartphones powered by these advanced lithium cells could have two to three times the battery life that smarpthones do now. He also said that automakers could build cheap electric cars, that still have a decent range on them.

Crytek has been going some tough times lately, not paying its employees on time, key talent leaving, and more, but the German studio behind CryEngine and Crysis has finally made a formal statement to GamesIndustry.

The company said that it "has been in a transitional phase" as it changes from being a developer to an online publisher, something that requires considerable sums of money. Crytek said that it has secured the money required, and is better prepared for the long term, but added that "we won't be communicating further details about our developments and progress".

The full statement we have below:

We don't really know what is going on with the new Nexus, with LG saying that it will not be making the new Nexus, and with all of the news of the Android Silver program, we truly don't know what to expect. That was however, until the latest rumor popped up that Motorola - which Google sold to Lenovo - would be constructing the new Nexus for the search giant.

Android Police has the hot rumor in its hands, giving it a "confidence level" of 6.5 out of 10. The rumor is that Motorola is working on a new smartphone with Google that goes by the codename of Shamu. Shamu will reportedly be aimed at major US carriers, as well as other large carriers throughout the world, carriers that most likely already handle the Nexus 5.

Shamu will reportedly feature a large 5.9-inch screen with an unknown resolution, and something that makes this rumor stand out: a fingerprint sensor. We are meant to be expecting this new smartphone in November, which should be an interesting time for a smartphone release. We'll have more information on the new Nexus as it materializes.

Google's research and development arm, known as Google X, is working on something new: the Baseline Study project. The goal of this new adventure is to hopefully one day, better detect health risks such as heart disease earlier in a patient's life, so that the patient can take preventative measures before it is too late.

Dr. Andrew Conrad, a molecular biologist, is the lead on the Baseline Study project, who has been credited with creating a cheap way of scanning donated blood for HIV. Conrad joined the ranks of Google in March 2013, assembling a team of 70-80 experts in the fields of biochemistry, imaging, molecular biology, optics and technology.

Google's Baseline Study began earlier in the year through an unnamed clinical testing firm, where doctors started collecting bodily fluids such as urine, blood, saliva and tears from 175 anonymous volunteers. Google will use these fluids and its mammoth computing power to hopefully find patterns called biomarkers. These biomarkets will help the search giant, and its researchers detect health issues before a person even shows symptoms of this issue. We don't know when we will hear more about this, but it's great to see Google working on something so important with its resources.

We've now just had our first look at the new Unreal Tournament, with a bunch of detail talked about for the upcoming first-person shooter. There's a few videos you can get your hands-on, with the game's Art Director, Chris Perna, giving us a bunch of information.

All-in-all, there's 47 minutes worth of video from Epic Games' streamed reveal of brand new concept art on the next-gen Unreal Tournament. Perna discusses this in the video above, where he says they're going for a "Chris Nolan Batman Begins look" instead of a "Tim Burton Batman look". Perna wants "something more polished" with "more realism, without going over the top" and repeating what Epic "did with Gears of War and UT3" where those games were "dark and grungy".

Senior Designer Jim Brown jumps in, saying: "You start with a map that's just kind of the basic shell, and we just focus on the gameplay. Independent of us doing that, a lot of times, Chris and the art guys will make these little vignettes that are - what would you call them?" Perna continues: "There are many different environments in UT. There's going to be different colors and different environments, but what this does is give you, maybe, a quality bar. 'Hey, all those different things need to have a lighting quality and a mood about them that feels like this.'"

While on a research trip to Nepal, two Ubisoft developers experienced a legitimate ritual sacrifice of a goat. The two developers jetsetted off to Nepal for some research, as Nepal is the inspiration for Kyrat, the fictitious Himalayan setting of Far Cry 4.

Far Cry 4's Game Narrative Director, Mark Thompson and the Associate Producer on the game, Phil Fournier, made the trip with Vice's Krishna Andavolu. Once they arrived in Kathmandu, the group heard a rumor that there was going to be an animal sacrifice, so they found their way into the event. The sacrifice was made possible thanks to a man providing the goat on behalf of his family to Kali, who is the Hindu goddess of change and destruction.

The video, above, is the first of a three-part series that goes into the source material and inspiration behind the fourth outing in the Far Cry world. At Comic-Con, the Creative Director behind Far Cry 4, Alex Hutchinson, told the audience that another Vice documentary titled "The Vice Guide to Liberia" offered another inspiration, this one for the game's villain, Pagan Min.

Now that some of the more popular torrenting software is available on portable devices, it was only a matter of time before the likes of The Pirate Bay optimized their websites for mobile.

Head on over to The Mobile Bay and you'll notice that the site looks nice and clean on mobile devices, scaled down and with a bit more room to breathe. The Pirate Bay told TorrentFreak that its website rendered poorly (or "like crap") on mobile, and so a refresh was inevitable. Mobile users are automatically redirected to the domain, although users will have the option of using the desktop layout if they like. The idea is that each section of the world's most notorious torrent indexer will get its own dedicated page - so users looking for TV episodes would be able to find season packs easily as well as see episode overviews.

Of course, in countries where such websites are blocked anyway mobile users will need to find their own proxies to access The Mobile Bay. As smart devices become ever more pervasive, it's no surprise to see The Pirate Bay paying attention to its consumer UX needs, in much the same way legal services have had to catch up too.

Most social media users feel jealous and inadequate, according to a report from British disability charity Scope.

The organisation surveyed 1,500 social media users and found that of these, over half of Facebook and Twitter users were left feeling like their life came up short compared to posts from peers. And although young people are the top demographic, many of those between 18 and 34 have considered quitting social media entirely, but stay online because it makes keeping in touch with friends easier. Roughly half of 18-34 year olds found that being an active user led to feelings of ugliness, being unattractive, or loneliness.

A chief event coordinator at Scope, Debbie Bines, suggested trying life without the internet for a little bit as part of the charity's Digital Detox weekend, which suggests frequent users take a 48 hour break from social networks. "Social media at its best is a great way to stay in touch with friends, as well as being the world's leading source of amusing cat pictures," Bines said. "But when things get out of balance and we start comparing ourselves to others, or feeling irritated, jealous or even ugly, it's got to be time to take a break."

Today just about everything we use relies on electricity to operate from our smartphones and computers to our toilets in some cases. On July 23, 2012, the sun threw two gigantic clouds of plasma into space and they barely missed the Earth. In fact, had the coronal mass ejections happened only a week before, they could have devastated life on Earth according to scientists.

These storms wouldn't have killed people necessarily, but they would have likely damaged satellites and the electrical grid to the point that anything that plugs into the wall wouldn't have worked. Physicist Daniel Baker says that if those solar eruptions had hit the Earth, we would still be picking up the pieces two years later.

NASA said, "Analysts believe that a direct hit ... could cause widespread power blackouts, disabling everything that plugs into a wall socket. Most people wouldn't even be able to flush their toilet because urban water supplies largely rely on electric pumps. According to a study by the National Academy of Sciences, the total economic impact could exceed $2 trillion or 20 times greater than the costs of a Hurricane Katrina. Multi-ton transformers damaged by such a storm might take years to repair."

For those of you with an Oculus Rift, you might want to grab the just-released Oculus SDK version 0.4.0 beta. The new Rift SDK includes some great new features, starting with DK2 support obviously.

The new SDK includes an Oculus Runtime that is installed separately from the SDK itself. The runtime package includes the Oculus Config Utility, service and drivers. We also have the star of the show, an Oculus Display Driver under Windows, something that routes the rendering output directly to the Rift headset, offering up an option to mirror this display output in a window.

There's also a new Health and Safety Warning screen that will display in front of you once an application starts up. You can grab the new Oculus SDK 0.4.0 beta package from the Oculus VR developer website, which requires a login.