• A CPU that has true chip-level virtualization from Intel or AMD.
• 2GB of RAM minimum.
• While XP Mode will be a free download for buyers of Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Enterprise, and Windows 7 Ultimate, you will need a licensed copy of Windows XP Service Pack 3.

All seems very straightforward except the virtualization part. According to Microsoft's Scott Woodgate, "Some PCs have [chip-level virtualization] and some don't. It's not as clear as it should be relative to which PCs have support and which don't." Hopefully, they will release a tester program along with Windows 7. [cnet]

The short story is that in most cases, Parallels runs a solid 14-20 percent faster than Fusion, except in the rather limited scenario of running Windows XP 32-bit on two virtual processors.

Overall, running 32-bit Windows OSes with a single virtual processor, Parallels is 14 percent faster; with two virtual processors, Parallels is 20 percent faster with Vista, while Fusion is 10 percent faster with XP; and for 64-bit Vista, Parallels is 15 percent speedier. Depending on the task, the numbers vary—like transcoding MP3s can be up to 30 percent faster on Parallels.

MacTech's tests are ridiculously comprehensive, spanning multiple machines with tons of different applications—the whole them took a couple months—so if you want the full, chart-heavy breakdown, head over there: [MacTech]

What you're watching is, admittedly, virtualization. The MVP hypervisor is a small (20KB) "bare metal" virtual machine which runs beneath the phone's OS(es). What this effectively does is create an identical platform on each and every device it's installed on, allowing OSes to be installed like apps (as in desktop virtualization, they're called "appliances"). Since it's the virtual machine that interfaces with the device's hardware, you can pretty much run any OS without worrying too about driver compatibility, or, as shown above, even run multiple OSes at the same time.

What's especially surprising about this is how well it seems to work. Windows CE, which isn't even technically a mobile OS,(yes, it is, but it's not anything someone could use for a phone) runs well, and Android's 3D spinning globe runs about as quickly as you'd expect it to on the N800's hardware. Though the N800 isn't a phone, the rep in the video makes it very clear that MVP is headed for smartphones, and so it should.

VMWare says they're in talks with manufacturers, who would have to include the hypervisor in their handsets for this to be possible. Problem is, I'm not sure what exactly would motivate a company to pay to license this tech in their handsets. Hardware virtualization, parallel mobile OSes and hypervisors are all a little esoteric for mass marketing, and I'm not sure that "John at Gizmodo totally has a boner for this" will be enough to push HTC over the edge. [ITPro via WindowsForDevices]

The virtualization engine itself promises to use 15-30% fewer resources as well, while adding the option to run a Leopard Server in a virtual machine and including support for DirectX 9, DirectX Pixel Shader 2.0 and OpenGL 2.0. There are 50 new features and enhancements in all.

Parallels 4 is available now for $80, existing Parallels customers can pick it up for $40 and if you bought Paralells 3 on or after September 1st, you actually qualify for a free upgrade. Two months of lead time on free software upgrades? Not bad! [Parallels via MacWorld]

For developers, having this VMware abstraction layer is pretty attractive from the start. If the layer is installed in, say, Blackberry, HTC and Motorola smartphones, then the developer will only have to write the software to run on the virtual machine's universal simulated hardware, rather than each phone's different hardware. VMware is promoting this capability as sort of a Java VM on steroids, which — with wide enough deployment and high enough efficiency — could mean an end to platform-specific apps. But that's not the most exciting part.

VMware's European product director told ZDNet that MVP could "make it possible for various mobile operating systems, such as Symbian, varieties of Linux and Windows Mobile, to 'co-exist on the handset as well'." In other words, due to the low-level nature of the solution, a VMware MVP-equipped handset could not just run platform-agnostic programs, it could run entirely different OSes in parallel. Whether anybody will take the time to make that happen remains to be seen, but just the possibility that new hardware could support pretty much any mobile OS is pretty exciting. [ZDNet]

Microsoft's relaxed their ruling, which was previously justified by saying that virtualization wasn't mature enough for consumer adoption, which allowed them to clamp down on only the supposedly more pro or business SKUs of Vista. Combine this with the news of 64-bit Vista support yesterday and this is a good week for people who want to run Windows on Macs. [Ars Technica]

Boot Camp won out for overall speed, where Parallels won for virtualization (running Windows at the same time as Macs) performance. VMWare Fusion, on the other hand, "wins" by keeping your OS X and Window environments separate, which isn't really a feature but more of a lack of a feature—Parallels does a much better and faster job cross-integrating applications and documents. But if you're into keeping up the wall between the two operating systems, there's an option for you. [MacTech]

The Pano Device requires a Pano Management Server that hosts copies of XP or Vista and will cost $20 dollars a month per Pano device attached to the network. The server and device will be available in September and will bring a tear of joy to a business owner's eye. [Panologic via Electronista]

We went over some of the stuff we covered yesterday, but there's lots of new stuff and even one major feature we didn't mention: Snapshots.

First off, the three major features are 3D graphics support, SmartSelect, and Snapshots.

3D graphics support is the shiniest feature everyone's talking about now. Yes, it will support 3D games like Quake and Half Life, but no, right now it doesn't support Vista Aero—that's coming in a later release.

Parallels couldn't give me an exact number when I asked for how much of a performance gap there'd be between running a game in Parallels and running it in native Boot Camp, but they did say that it's very close to native and you wouldn't really notice any gameplay problems. That, of course, depends on the game, but Half Life 2 ran fine on his machine.

One thing to note is that not all games will be supported by default. They'll have a list of games they support, and the list will be updated whenever there's a new build available. Hopefully your game will be supported at launch, but Parallels has a reputation for releasing frequent, and top-notch, updates.

The second major feature is SmartSelect, which allows you to set a preference for opening any file in any application, no matter which OS it's in. Example: You can set text files to open up in Windows Notepad, so even if you double-click it in OS X, it'll still pop open Notepad. Think of it as an extension of Coherence, which lets you run Windows apps in its own window on OS X.

On a side note, if you're in Windows and you look in your start menu, you'll be able to see all of the OS X apps listed under a Parallels folder, and have a similar option for opening Windows apps in OS X. Neato.

The third major feature is Snapshots, which lets you take a snapshot of your virtual machine so you can revert to it if something's wrong. Do this before you install apps or make any major changes, and you'll have something to fall back on in case anything goes wrong.

It's super useful for software testers or people who make modifications to their OS, and only takes up minimal room on your hard drive per snapshot.

All in all, the guys tell us that besides the new features, everything else is more robust than even version 2.5, which just came out recently. With their track record, we believe them. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Parallels]

The other major feature is "SmartSelect," which allows users to open a file in either a OS X or Windows program directly from OS X. You won't have to fire up the Windows program first and open it the long way. New versions cost $79 and upgrade versions are $39 if you buy before June 6. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Parallels via MacWorld]

Among them are full USB 2.0 support, which means you can use your Zune on your Mac with abandon, iSight support, so you can video-chat it up in XP, improved memory usage, sharing a Boot Camp partition, and better Coherence support.

That last part means you can actually add Windows apps to your dock, and if Parallels isn't running when you launch the app, it'll start up automagically for you. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Parallels]