The Blackest Black

Apparently scientists have discovered a new "paper-thin material" that is able to absorb 99.955 percent of the light that hits it. This is 30 times the previous standard for the government's blackest black. Now you may wonder why this is so important. Well part of it is that this new substance can improve solar tech capabilities significantly. (the current tech allows for reflecting only 5% of incoming light) The fact that this kind of technology is progressing makes me think that the easier way to implement solar technology is to clearly make it more efficient thus the giant cost might be offset. Additionally at present solar panels usually can bounce excess power to the national grid so by having these new more efficient panels much more power could be available. Which in turn could be sold to offset the cost.
The other crazy part about this new black is that they think scientists can use its material to create a type of invisibility cloak like out of Harry Potter. They dont think that they are too far away from bending light either. The theory goes that since so much light is absorbed by the material it is just impossible for the human eye to see it the only drawback is that the person behind the cloak would not be able to see past it. The military has invested quite a bit in this project.

some other crazy applications for it:

"Telescopes lined with it would sop up random flecks of incidental light, providing a blacker background to detect faint stars.

And a wide array of heat detectors and energy-measuring devices, including climate-tracking equipment on satellites, would become far more accurate than they are today if they were coated with energy-grabbing superblack."