Labs at Rice University in Texas must have been bubbling with paint recently, because researchers there have just announced a battery that can be painted on to almost any surface. This could be HUGE for tiny devices getting tinier (think paper-thin phones). And how does one achieve battery paint? Actually, it seems pretty logical. The Verge explains:

The team began by converting all the components of a lithium-ion battery into paints. It then layered the paints on top of each other, emulating the structure of a conventional cell. Once correctly layered, the paint was able to store and discharge energy like any battery.

And not only could this mean thinner phones, but think about the design possibilities that open up here. We’d no longer be constrained to shapes that fit around square or circular batteries. Bring on the banana phone!