I was just reading a Guardian UK newspaper article about the new possibilities opened up to software developers with GPU (Graphic Processor Unit) assisted computing. Basically what this is is that if you have a major brand graphics card in your PC or Mac (Nivdia or ATI), it is now possible to open up the GPU on the card to assist the computers actual CPU in doing intensive tasks.. So if your computer has a “Dual Core” CPU you could potentially have 102 cores to do tasks.. For 3D Modeling, Architecture and engineering design or game development, your out of box home PC could be come a formidable tool.

On a Press Release from Apple last month on the functionality of the upcoming Operating System, Snow Leopard (10.6) Apple are working on a “standard” for GPU computing called “OpenCL” to take advantage of this technology. Of course, not all camps are behind this initiative, Microsoft as usual, have decided to investigate their own entrance into this new arena, so It will be interesting to see where this goes.