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Google’s Portable Native Client is software that lets a web app use your computer’s hardware much the way that a native app would do — and this allows you to develop web games, services, and even more complex software that acts like something that would normally run straight from your PC, not a web browser.
Google developers including Christian Stefansen decided to put that to the test in an unusual way — by creating an Amiga 500 emulator that runs in the Chrome web browser, using Portable Native Client. It’s based on the Open Source Universal Amiga Emulator, contains about 400 thousand lines of C code which were ported to Native client, and lets you run some classic Amiga apps using nothing but a web browser.
It’s a bit of a resource hog — my computer slowed down noticeably while using the web app. But it’s a pretty cool resource hog nonetheless.
Here’s a roundup of tech news from around the web.
- Amiga 500 Emulator runs a classic OS in a Chrome web browser
Classic operating systems never die. They just become fodder for folks writing emulators. [CNET] - Google may be shipping slightly modified Nexus 5 hardware with larger speaker holes, less jiggly buttons
The changes aren’t dramatic, but some users are noticing that recently shipped Nexus 5 units seem to address a few problems pointed out by early adopters. [xda-developers] - ARM acquires gaming graphics company Geomerics
ARM says you can expect to see the fruits of this acquisition in next-gen mobile graphics designs. [Geomerics] - Gigabyte introduces its take on the NVIDIA Tegra Note 7″ tablet (in Taiwan)
Another day, another identical tablet based on NVIDIA’s reference design, complete with stylus support a Tegra 4 CPU, and a 1280 x 800 pixel display. [VR-Zone] - SlingPlayer app for Windows 8 hits the Windows Store
You can use a Slingbox to stream live or recorded TV from your home theater setup to most devices with a web browser — but if you’re looking for a tablet-friendly Windows app, now you’ve got a new $15 option. [Windows Blog] - Want to use your Chromebook Pixel at 2560 x 1700px native resolution? Now you can see tiny text (in dev channel)
The Chromebook Pixel may have a crazy high-res display, but text and images don’t look incredibly tiny because graphics are scaled up a bit. If you really want the extra screen space, now you can enable it. [+François Beaufort]
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Emulation is always resource intensive.