Briefly: Multi OS PowerPC, Canadian iPod price reduction

Sometime next year, IBM is expect to announce a revision to its next generation of PowerPC 970 processors that will allow it to run multiple operating systems simultaneously, according to CNet News.com. Doing so will allow a computer to handle more jobs at the same time and to be used more efficiently, said Karl Freund, vice president of IBM eServer pSeries.

"The technology, called partitioning, relies on a concept called virtualization that breaks the hard link between an operating system and the underlying hardware. Partitioning is available today only on servers using IBM's higher-end Power4 and Power5 processors and in competing server designs from Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and Intel."

According to Freund, IBM's goal is to make virtualization capability ubiquitous across the Power line of processors. Although he declined to comment on precisely when the chip scheduled to arrive, he said it's pretty late in the design cycle and Apple plans to use it in upcoming Mac-based hardware products.

iPod Price Reduction in Canada

Canadian retailers will soon slightly reduce the price of all Apple iPods following a recent Federal Court of Appeal decision throwing out the levy on digital music players with embedded memory.

According to an article in Market News, the price will be reduced at Future Shop and Best Buy stores by the amount of the previously imposed levy, which equates to $25 for Apple iPods, which come in 20GB and 40GB versions. For iPod Minis, which start at 4GB capacities, the savings will be $15.