| Apple yesterday announced that its Intel-based Macs will include Rosetta, a technology that will allow them to run PowerPC applications. The technology allows the thousands of applications already available for PowerPC-based Macs to run on the new Intel architecture. In his WWDC keynote, Steve Jobs yesterday demonstrated both Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop running on an Intel-based Mac using the Rosetta technology, claiming that the experience would be transparent to the end user--unlike the Classic, Apple's emulation layer for running Mac OS 9 applications on Mac OS X. According to PC Pro, not all applications will be compatible with Rosetta, including those that have "intense computing needs" such as 3D modelling or ray tracing applications. "Not all OS X applications will run under Rosetta and some will run better than others. Applications that have a lot of user interaction and low computational needs, such as a word processor, are quite compatible. Those that have a moderate amount of user interaction and some high computational needs or that use OpenGL are, in most cases, also quite compatible. Those that have intense computing needs aren't compatible. This includes applications that need to repeatedly compute fast Fourier transforms (FFTs), that compute complex models for 3-D modelling, or compute ray tracing."
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