CrossOver Linux 9 (code-named Snow Mallard) and its Mac brother, CrossOver Mac 9, let you run many popular Windows applications on Linux or Mac OS X. Supported Windows applications include Microsoft Office (from Office 97 to Office 2007), Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Outlook 2002 to 2007, all current versions of Quicken up to 2010 and QuickBooks up to 2004, and some versions of Photoshop and Photoshop CS. Based on my experience with CrossOver, which goes back more than a decade, I’d say this new version supports about 20% more applications (at a level that most users would find usable) than the last one.
CrossOver is based on the open-source project Wine, an implementation of the Windows API on top of the Unix/Linux operating system family. Wine is a mature project involving almost 17 years of work to get Windows applications to run on Unix and Linux systems.
Actually, you don’t need CrossOver Linux to run Windows applications on Linux. You can do it with Wine alone — if you know exactly what you’re doing. What CrossOver brings to the table is automated installation of Windows applications, and technical support. And in this latest version, the CrossOver interface has been improved so it’s easier than ever to install and manage Windows applications.
Power. Clean water. The Interstate highway system. It’s easy to forget that the advantages of modern American life result from basic infrastructure investments made by earlier generations.
Tomorrow the FCC will release a national broadband strategy. The plan will set goals for expanding broadband to unserved and under-served areas, capsule promote greater speeds, order
and drive consumer demand. It will harness this communications technology to urgent national priorities, buy cialis such as jobs, education, health, energy, and security. In short, the plan will lay the groundwork for investing in America’s future.
Yes, the Internet was invented in the United States. Yes, we once led the world in broadband development. But now, networks in many countries, from Western Europe to East Asia, are faster and more advanced than our own. Long after we recover from this recession, this broadband gap will be a dead weight on American businesses and workers, unless we act now.
As with the space race in the 1960s, America needs a national effort by our scientists, engineers, companies, educational institutions and government agencies. Just like that great national adventure, we need near-term and long-term goals.
Broadband is an essential input to expanding business, education, and healthcare opportunities everywhere. As soon as possible, we need to bring Internet access to every community, from rural America to the inner cities.
But we also need even more ambitious objectives — or “stretch goals†— that test the limits of our ingenuity. When President John F. Kennedy summoned the nation to space exploration, the immediate goal was to send an astronaut in orbit around the earth. But JFK called for “putting a man on the moon†because he knew that dream would inspire Americans to literally reach for the stars.
The private sector has a big job to do, and needs to carry much of the investment. For our part, we plan to build and test an ultra-high-speed broadband network in at least one U.S. community. We are excited by the amount of support our proposed testbed has received from local communities and individuals.
But smart, tailored public policies are critical too. Let’s install broadband fiber as part of every federally-funded infrastructure project, from highways to mass transit. And let’s deploy broadband fiber to every library, school, community health center, and public housing facility in the U.S.
I support a national broadband strategy because ubiquitous broadband connectivity can catapult America into the next level of economic competitiveness, worker productivity, and educational opportunity. But as in the past, we will make this breakthrough by choice, not chance.
Posted by Eric Schmidt, CEO GOOGLE
Microsoft dropped a major announcement at the MIX conference today. They released the Internet Explorer 9 platform preview and along with that we learned that IE9 would be be GPU accelerator. This next version of Internet Explorer will be the first browser to be capable to handling this sort of GPGPU activity.
Nvidia, ed
Microsoft’s partner in the endeavor (the one handling the GPU side of the release) explained IE9’s new features in a blog post:
Today, patient with introduction of Internet Explorer 9, practitioner
Microsoft gives us another milestone for visual computing. Internet Explorer 9 includes a new JavaScript engine, support for HTML5 and hardware accelerated graphics and text. Internet Explorer 9 is the first browser designed to take advantage of modern hardware, resulting in graphics and performance improvements throughout the browser including the first to deliver hardware accelerated scalable vector graphics( SVG); the first to enhance JavaScript engine performance with the benefit of shifting from the CPU to the GPU; and the first to deliver GPU-Powered HTML5.
The big features are those mentioned at the end–hardware-accelerated SVG as well as GPU-powered Javascript and HTML5. HTML5 handles H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video and MP3/AAC audio (not to mention CSS3) which will benefit from the GPU acceleration. The new Javascript engine is multi-core compatible and is focused on fast performance and increased compatibility.
At the moment it looks like ATI users are out of luck. We’ll see what happens down the road–it doesn’t seem prudent for Microsoft to leave ATI or other graphics providers out of a major browser release.
You can get the IE9 platform preview here. This isn’t a beta (it’s more of a developer preview), so don’t expect complete usability or user-friendliness just yet.
Original article posted on http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/ie9-to-be-gpu-accelerated-20100316/