Stashbits: Parallels 4, Delayed In-Ear Headphones

Parallels 4 has been released to consumers today bringing with it, a monumental improvement in speed and resource handling along side support for Leopard server virtualization. While Parallels 4 may be shipping, Apple has slipped on delivering their newest in-ear headphones to the masses.

Parallels 4.0

Parallels, the long time competitor to VM Ware’s Fusion for the Mac, has sprung version 4 of its popular virtualization Software upon users bringing a massive speed improvement over earlier versions. Parallels claims a 50% speed increase from Parallels 3 and uses 15-30% fewer resources which should take the burden off from running two Operating Systems on a single Mac. The immense optimization in the newest version comes down to a new Adaptive Hypervisor which better juggles tasks on the host Mac.

Resource utilization and faster speeds aren’t the only selling features of Parallels 4, gamer will get a much welcomed boost through support for DirectX 9, Pixel Shader 2.0 and OpenGL 2.0. Other improvements are support for up to 8 GBs of RAM, up to eight dedicated CPUs for a running VM and a new viewing mode called Modality plus energy saving features.

In-Ear Headphones Not In Delivery Just Yet

Introduced at Apple’s ‘Let’s Rock’ event way back when in September, the newest addition to an ever growing family of iPod accessories, in-ear headphones and mic ready earbuds, have noticeably slipped past their estimated ship dates. While there has been a varying opinion on the quality of Apple’s earphones, the inclusion of a Mic (despite their compatibility being secluded to the latest iPod Touch and iPod Nano) made them much more desirable for use with VOIP Apps and Universal Access controls.

Unfortunately, they’ve gone from shipping in October to having no firm release date according to TUAW. Alternatively, you can go crazy hitting ‘Command + R’ to refresh Apple’s product page to check back on the progress they’ve made escaping a remote warehouse.