Google NaCl
Google Native Client is a technology for running native x86 code in web browsers. “What!” I hear you exclaim, “why does the world deserve another instance of the ActiveX disaster?”
Not so fast. Building on the idea of Wahbe et al from the early 90’s, its basic idea is to build a verifier for a slightly constrained x86 binary. The folks at Matasano Chargen have a good analysis of the security issues in this architecture.
However, given the current prevalence of managed programming environments as browser plugins (in Flex and Silverlight), one wonders if there is a large user base for writing native applications for the browser. Games are of course one obvious candidate (the NaCl demos contain a Quake port.) In any case, this is something worth watching over the next couple of years.