How to Take Advantage of Multicore PCs

Call it the great multicore discord: a parade of major hardware and software vendors promising desktop applications powered by multicore chips yet all marching out of step, leaving confused software developers in the dust -- but times are changing. Far out front, chipmakers Intel and AMD have delivered quad-core chips for desktop computers earlier this year. And computers with dual-core chips are now the norm. But only the savviest of developers can harness this massive processing power by weaving a mind-bending web of code that foundational software vendors should have provided. So much of the multicore chips' processing power is unharnessed. Software vendors are finally closing the gap: Microsoft, Apple, third-party platform vendors, and software developer consortiums are tweaking everything from the operating system... [read full story]