To be fair, this site’s been around for quite some time- and we’ve covered it at one point in the past. Still, it merits something of a revisit now that Chromebooks have hit the market; don’t you think?

What Is It?

How many of you remember Dosbox? For those who don’t; it’s an x86 DOS emulator, designed to allow modern-day users to play DOS games on Windows. While that might not sound particularly impressive- or noteworthy-to play any of those games without DosBox involved a great deal of overly complicated mucking around in the Windows system files, or searching out a version of whatever game you wanted to play that would be compatible with the software of modern-day systems.

Either way, too much trouble. For anyone with an itch to jump back into the old days, Dosbox was a godsend. Now, you’re probably wondering what the point of this history lesson is, right? You’re trying to figure out exactly why I’m sitting here babbling to you about DosBox.  Software emulation ahoy! DosBox has come to Chrome, via Chrome’s Native Client.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet NAClBox.

DOSBox and Native Client

The anonymous programmer behind NaClBox might not have much to say about themselves, but they certainly have plenty to say about their creation. “When I first read about Native Client,” they write, “I was struck by the possibilities. The more I thought about Native Client, the more I started to talk to my coworkers about [it] as “The Plugin to Rule Them All.”

“I have read a lot of stories in the media regarding Native Client,” they continue, “Some commentators seem to get it, but I am struck mostly by the lack of imagination. When I hear people talking about Chrome OS and complaining that they will be stuck in a browser I want to shout: Native Client! I am disappointed to see commentators compare it to ActiveX rather than a (naively) more appropriate comparison- an in-browser VMWare. I don’t blame these people, though. There have been very few examples of Native Client in action.”

This is, obviously, something our anonymous friend wishes to remedy. “A little earlier in the year, I had the idea of trying to learn more about Native Client by actually trying to bring an existing application online.” Regarding why they decided emulation would be the best choice for a first-time project, they go on to explain “when you choose an emulator, you get tremendous bang for your buck. DOSbox runs literally hundreds of games and applications. Go check out their website and install it on your machine. It really is a great piece of software.”

So, while this software’s a novelty at best on a PC, on a Chromebook…yeah, you get the idea. Gaming on the Chromebook actually seems somewhat more viable now, doesn’t it?

How Do I Get Started?

Unfortunately, NaClBox currently only supports Chrome 12 and 13- the latter is recommended “for performance reasons.” So it basically only supports the stable build at the moment, given that both the beta and developer channels now run Chrome 14.  That kinda sucks- I was myself hoping to give the software a whirl. Thankfully, there might be an update that adds support for Chrome 13 some time in the next few days, but until then, No NaClBox for us.

Those of you who run Chrome 13 are going to have to turn on the Chrome Native Client. There are two ways you can do this:

Option 1: Type about:flags into the omnibox, and enable Native Client from the list.

Option 2: Start Chrome with the –enable-nacl flag in the shortcut.

What Games Can I Play?

Currently NaClBox offers support for Adlib Tracker II, Round 42, Epic Pinball, Duke Nukem, Duke Nukem II, Jazz Jackrabbit and Star Wars: TIE Fighter. In addition, it offers demos of The Secret of Monkey Island, Indiana Jones and The Fate of Atlantis, Masters of Magic, Falcon 3.0, Sam and Max Hit The Road, Alone In The Dark, and Simcity 2000. Not exactly the hundreds-strong library of DOSbox, but not a poor selection, either. I’d imagine more games will come in the future as the developer updates software- although the fact that it hasn’t been updated since June is of some concern.

Anyway, I just thought this a cool piece of software, and one that was worth revisiting.

Via TechCrunch

Image Credits: NaClBox Blog

Google just released a rather excellent video on its Chrome channel, detailing how a  middle school located in South LA is using their Chromebooks. The school, known as the KIPP academy of opportunity, is a tuition free charter school centered around something which should honestly be a given(but often isn’t): helping students achieve the best results possible. The school’s evidently been using Chromebooks since March 2011 as part of the Google Pilot Program, and everyone-both students and teachers- loved the experience.

“Compared to other notebooks there’s no software installed there’s no imaging that needs to be done, once they’re set up and deployed, the updates are really happening on their own, the less administrative and overhead burden you have to manage the computers, the more computers you can put out in the classroom and sustain and maintain.” said Matthew A. Peskay, Director of Technology at KIPP.

The video continues with a student describing how all of the students in James Sanders’ social studies class use Chromebooks to log on to their teacher’s blog, where they find class instructions, notes, and coursework all ready and waiting for them.

“My class is entirely run online” said Sanders, “And so my course has shifted from more of a direct instruction model to a more interactive-based model where the students are actually required to think independently; create, and collaborate, rather than just memorize and regurgitate.”

At this point, the video enters into something of a rapid-fire sequence in which student after student and teacher after teacher describes their experience with the Chromebook- and there’s not a single negative review among them. Easier distribution of coursework, more interaction, more collaboration, more opportunities for students to be heard, increasingly varied and unique assignments and tasks…the list goes on and on; and the end result seems to be not only improved grades, but improved learning. That’s always something that’s bothered me about the education system- it’s so focused on rote memorization, so entrenched in process and schedule that at the end of the day; you’ve memorized, but you haven’t really learned.

The video ends with a rather poignant statement from Nasser, a student at KIPP:

“The Google Chromebooks…I think they’re very unique. They create the next generation of computers.”

Well said, Nasser. I think you’re right.

Tired of Facebook? You are not alone: according to a recent survey, Facebook is the 10th most hated company in America. Facebook’s membership is decreasing as well.

Perhaps Google+ is arriving just in the nick of time.

Andy Hertzfeld, one of the designers of the first Mac and hired by Google to work on Google+’s Circles explains “Everything on the Web can be improved by knowledge of your social connections, so Google+ is an effort to…add a social layer to Google, to YouTube, to Google Search, to every Google property.”

What is the nature of this improvement exactly? Personally, I don’t want “social” to add bloat to my experience of the web. No Farmville for me, thank you very much. (Though I understand that social gaming will be a feature that will be added later.) Google cuts the bloat and aims for intuitive and full social integration with Google services.

I can access all my Google services within the Google+ interface via the black bar at the top of the page. Imagine if your whole photo library was just a couple of clicks away from sharing with your friends and family? That’s what you get with Google+. The all important Google search also received some social integration as well. Just do your regular searching on the Google+ homepage, and if you find something you’d like to share, click “share” and you have the choice of which of your circles to share your particular article of interest.

People in my circle who aren’t on Google+ but in my gmail contacts list can be notified of my update stream via email if I add them to one of my circles. A very nice touch and personally very helpful in keeping touch with some of my family. This is also a clever way for Google to promote the service to others as well.

Perhaps the coolest feature that Google+ offers is “Hangouts.” This is the feature which isn’t offered by any other “social network.” This allows for video chatting with multiple people in your circles. Just invite people from your circle of friends and in your “stream” there will be a button in which those invited people will be able to join you. I tried it out with Daniel and was delighted how well it worked on my Cr-48. Crystal clear and smooth.

Do you think that Google+ will catch on?

I believe so.

Let’s not forget, it took years for Facebook to become the social behemoth it is. Google+ may take some time to catch on and chip away at Facebooks’s dominance. Google isn’t exactly starting from scratch. There are millions already using Google services and Google+ is an extension of them and the features that Google+ sports has the potential to inspire them to use their Google services more exclusively.

It’s possible that Google’s Chromebooks have already missed their window according to Search Engine Land.

Both Vizio and Toshiba are planning to show off Google TV products at CES in January.

Multiple profiles in Chrome browser are going to be available as a settings option in the near future.

TechCrunch’s John Biggs already believes that Chrome OS will be a top seller for next year’s holiday season.

Here is a list of five cloud operating systems that are already on the market.

The IT manufacturing industry-based Digitimes is reporting that Google is planning to release its own netbook loaded with Chrome OS in November.

There are no details on when this product may ship, but if this is true we should expect some kind of announcement pretty soon. The report also states that devices made by Acer and HP will make their debut in December. The report says that contract manufacturer Inventec will be producing the Google-branded device, while Quanta Computer is handling the latter two.

It isn’t a stretch to believe at this point that a Google-branded reference device will arrive first now that there  have been rumors of a Nexus Two type of device in the smartphone space. This could showcase to other companies thinking about Chrome OS the value of using top shelf components and possibly cloud processors made with ARM chips.

Still, it begs the question whatever happened to the rumored tablet that was supposed to arrive soon.

Google rules online search advertising, but TechCrunch Disrupt attendees aim to crack the social media ad market.

Google’s Wi-Fi incident is under more scrutiny from Canada’s privacy commissioner.

Inspired by Ask.com and Bing, Google will allow users to add a background image to the Google homepage.

Google Search for Mobile now includes mobile app results.

Google Chrome OS could shake up PC market predicts PCWorld’s Tony Bradley.

Just a few minutes ago, Hexxeh has announced that the latest version of his custom build of Chrome, called Flow, has been released. As of this writing, his website says that it has received over two hundred downloads. We’ll be giving Flow a shot later on today, and let you know what we think about it.

You can download Chrome OS Flow from here.

Update: You can check out our review of Flow right here.