Now that Angry Birds has come to Chrome, none of us have any reason to leave the house. But if you like your games closer to 1fps, NaClBox may be more your speed. The Chrome-only emulator revives such DOS-based classics as The Secret of Monkey Island , Falcon 3.0, and Alone In the Dark. Most are demos, meant to show off the browser's Native Client potential and tug the heartstrings of retro-gamers. And we'll admit getting a little misty at stepping back into the blocky shoes of Guybrush Threepwood -- but maybe even more so at the bleepy-bloopy Soundblaster-era soundtrack.
As you may know, crafting a katana is a delicate process that involves carefully constructing a razor-sharp high-carbon edge around a soft shock-absorbent core. One day though, smiths and forging fires could be replaced by electrode-wielding mad-scientists, with the technology to selectively harden and soften metal at will. At least that's what we envisioned when we read about Jörg Weißmüller's breakthrough research in the field of nanomaterials. The German scientist discovered that by placing precious metals in acid he could create tiny ducts through corrosion. Once those channels are flooded with a conductive liquid, electrical currents can be used to harden the material and, if you change your mind about the brittle results, the effect can easily be reversed to make it soft again. The tech could eventually lead to self-healing vehicle armor or scratch-resistant cellphones -- but, really, we just want to zap our way to a high-quality samurai sword. Physorg
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