Grand Central trademark

Working through the US Patent and Trademark Office, Apple has filed for a trademark on Grand Central, a technology expected to be used in Mac OS X Snow Leopard, due sometime next year. Not to be confused with Google's phone management system, the Apple technology is intended to aid developers in supporting multi-core processors, which can often be underexploited even in high-end software such as games and rendering tools.

Apple describes Grand Central as making multi-core support easier to implement, by virtue of making the whole of Mac OS X multi-core aware. Tasks are optimized for distribution across several processors, and Macs should further see a performance boost through OpenCL compatibility. The standard allows conventional software access to the GPUs on video cards, which typically only see their performance maximized in the course of running intense 3D programs.

In related news, Apple has been granted three patents connected to the the iPhone, iPod and optional In-Ear Headphones. The first two detail the packaging used for Apple handhelds, while the third describes the headphones' input mechanism.

by MacNN Staff