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The computer industry is experiencing a major shift: improved single processor performance via higher clock rates has reached its technical limits due to overheating. Fortunately, Moore's law still holds, so chip makers use transistors to boost performance through parallelism in multicore and manycore processors. However, exploiting the full potential of these processors requires parallel programming. Thus, a large number of developers need to parallelize desktop applications, including browsers, business applications, media processing, and other domain-specific applications. This is likely to result in the largest rewrite of software in the history of the desktop. To be successful, systematic engineering principles must be applied to parallelize performance-critical applications and environments. In light of these developments, we're pleased to present this special issue on programming methods, tools, and libraries for parallelizing desktop applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on various developments in the computer industry. Intel Corp. has scrapped the development of two new computer chips to rush to the marketplace a more efficient chip technology more than a year ahead of schedule. The chips being cancelled include the fourth-generation Pentium 4 chip, codenamed Tejas, which was to be sold next year. Also being dropped is a new Xeon processor for low-end computer servers, code-named Jayhawk and based on architecture similar to Tejas. Worldwide semiconductor sales increased nearly 37 percent in April 2004 compared with the same month a year ago. Sales of semiconductors reached U.S. $16.94 billion in April 2004, up 4.1 percent from March 2004. Adidas Corp. says it has created the world's first smart shoe by mating it with a computer chip that adapts its cushioning level to a runner's size and stride. Rambus Inc., a U.S. semiconductor chip designer, filed an antitrust lawsuit against Korea-based Hynix Semiconductor Inc., U.S.-based Micron Technology Inc., and Germany-based Infineon Technologies AG and Siemens AG.