According to the talk, the timeframe on the entire project was relatively short, with initial plans starting in March 2003. Initial negotiations were begun with Dell, IBM and AMD, but costs remained too high. In fact, the first Virginia Tech heard of the new PowerMac G5s was on their announcement day at WWDC (June 23rd).
Varadarajan met with Apple within the week and the deal was made. (Of interest, the purchase was actually made through the Apple Store.) Initial machines came with the stock Mac OS X 10.2.7, with plans to upgrade to Panther shortly.
Final plans for the cluster will be made freely available, and requests have already been coming in. Varadarjan says, "Expect to see a lot more G5 clusters."
Tuesday September 15, 2026 1:43 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple today announced a new subscription initiative that turns paid iCloud+ subscriptions into a broader services bundle in more than 100 countries.
In select countries, Apple says every paid iCloud+ plan, including the cheapest 50GB tier, now includes Apple TV and Apple Arcade "at no additional cost," while family sharing extends the storage, TV and Arcade access to up to five people....
Monday September 14, 2026 10:48 pm PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple released iOS 27 this week, and despite the company's focus this year on refining its flagship operating system and nixing bugs, there are still many additional features to explore, not least of which is Apple's new context-aware Siri, re-tooled for the generative AI era.
Which iPhones Support Every iOS 27 Feature?
This year's major iPhone software update isn't all about AI, though,...
Monday September 14, 2026 9:00 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Update — 10 a.m. Pacific Time: Apple has released iOS 27.
During its iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Duo event last week, Apple announced that iOS 27 will be released widely on Monday, September 14.
iOS 27 should be available around 10 a.m. Pacific Time / 1 p.m. Eastern Time today via the Settings app, under General → Software Update.
Below, we have highlighted eight new features and...