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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

See that there? That's a hope  and  a dream, both of which are seemingly situated in a nondescript box six feet beneath the surface of reality. Thanks to a bit of digging by the folks at  Techie Buzz , a Microsoft patent was unearthed containing pictures and descriptions of a bantam media player, not unlike the sketches here. Naturally, the first thing that comes to mind is an iPod nano competitor, and one has to wonder when exactly the plug was pulled from such an initiative. The application itself was originally filed in April of 2009, and was just made public within the USPTO database today -- the last Zune device to be produced was the HD (which landed in the fall of '09), and given Redmond's insistence on makingWindows Phone 7 its next Zune, we're guessing this little guy won't ever see the light of day. Maybe in another life, though. For now, feel free to pour one out as you think of what could've been, and give that source link a poke if you're...

Graphene, is there anything it can't do? Researchers are already trying to put it in processors, fuel cells, and batteries -- now your internet connection might get ten-times faster thanks to the silicon successor. Researchers at UC Berkeley have created tiny, one-atom-thick modulators that could switch the data-carrying light on and off in a fiber-optic connection much faster than current technology. In addition to running at a higher frequency (the team believes it will scale up to 500GHz -- modern modulators run at about 1GHz) the smaller, 25-micron size means thinner cables could be used, reducing capacitance and further boosting speeds. Labs have already crossed the 100 terabit threshold and graphene could push that even higher, yet we're still stuck staring at a buffering screen every time we try to Netflix  Degrassi .

Is this Apple's next iPod nano? It is if you believe the folks from Taiwan's  Apple.pro  website who, as you may recall, also recently got their hands on a purported next-gen iPod nano chassis that seems to match the complete device pictured above. As you can see, the big change here is the addition of a built-in camera that's said to be 1.3 megapixels, which appears to have also shoved the clip out of the way, although there does seem to be a faint outline where one could be. Of course, the key word here is purported  -- to its credit, some of the site's leaks have indeed panned out in the past, but we'd still recommend taking this one with a grain of salt for the time being. Apple Insider Apple.pro