Chad Clark's Open Journal : 2007-07-19

1) Game of Checkers is "solved" by computers.  The BBC story reads:

  A Canadian team has created a computer program that can win or draw any
  game, no matter who the opponent is.
  
  It took an average of 50 computers nearly two decades to sift through the
  500 billion billion possible draughts positions to come up with the
  solution.

2) Paint-on solar panels.

Science Daily article reads:

  Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) have developed
  an inexpensive solar cell that can be painted or printed on flexible
  plastic sheets.
  
  ...
  
  Mitra and his research team took the carbon nanotubes and combined them
  with tiny carbon Buckyballs (known as fullerenes) to form snake-like
  structures. Buckyballs trap electrons, although they can't make electrons
  flow. Add sunlight to excite the polymers, and the buckyballs will grab
  the electrons. Nanotubes, behaving like copper wires, will then be able
  to make the electrons or current flow.