If it succeeds, Microsoft’s planned parallel-computing software, designed to take advantage of new manycore chips — processors with more than eight cores, possible as soon as 2010 — could bring as much as a hundredfold computing speed-up in solving some problems.

Likely to be timed to the arrival of “Windows 7,” it would allow even hand-held devices to see, listen, speak and make complex real-world decisions — in the process, transforming computers from tools into companions.