Created as a Master of Science thesis by a Computer Science student in Umeå University, Phun is an amazing little educational game giving players a rich physics playground where they can easily build and tear apart environments, creating havoc upon squiggly line blocks, water, bits and so much more. Great for teaching a young class about the concepts of physics or just a fun little toy to waste your time at work. Originally posted by our nerdy cousins over at Bunch of Nerds.

Download it at Phun.at

Don’t have a games console and can’t stand up from your computer long enough to pick up that plastic guitar? Then Piano Hero might be for you! Piano Hero is an open source (MIT license) quasi-instructional software which allows users to learn how to play any kind of music, from your favorite video game themes, to classical and holiday music, via your computer keyboard. Piano Hero supports any MIDI file, let’s you slow down songs while learning various parts and is naturally only for Windows 2000 and XP for now, but let us hope that an OS X port is on it’s way.

Read more: Piano Hero

Over at Soldat Movies, they are collecting a long and growing list of neat (and free) physics-based games, both download-able and web-playable. It wasn’t long ago that the gaming press were raving about physics and how it would be the next big thing in gaming and free the games industry from it’s current rut of sequels and boring gameplay. Well, that worked out well and I think the next big thing is artificial intelligence maybe? Who knows and who cares huh? Just bring on the Wii. Oh yeah, sorry, there are quite a few gems here such as Warthog Launch and the critically-acclaimed N, so anyone looking to pass a few hours while bored at work now have a new physics-based playground to call home.

Read more: Collection of physics-based games

The Icon Factory is offering a great little set of OS icons, featuring 8-bit style retro video game characters, from classic titles such as Pac Man, Dig Dug, Mario Brothers, and 17 others. Offering icon packs for both Windows XP and Mac OS X, as well as a Pixadex iContainer, there’s no reason you shouldn’t have your desktop overflowing with retro video game character icons. Oh, best of all, the price tag, free.

Read more: Arcade Daze - Retro video game icons for PC and OS X