Multithreaded Computation Support in Matlab - FINALLY!!!

A couple of weeks ago, Mathworks released a new version of Matlab (R2007a). They have, at last, added support for multithreaded computations.
A LOT of entries to my blog come from searches like "matlab dual core", which surprisingly puts a post of mine very high in the results list. The thing is that especially now with the increased usage of dual and quad-core machines, running heavy Matlab computations with a single thread is just a waste of resources. Apparently, the guys at Mathworks were listening to the users, and added support for multi-threaded calculations. It seems to be managed under the hood somehow, and requires changes to the preferences. From the release notes:

"If you run MATLAB on a multiple-CPU system (multiprocessor or multicore), use a new preference to enable multithreaded computation. This can increase MATLAB performance for element-wise and BLAS library computations.
By default the preference is not set, so you must set it to enable multithreaded computation. With the preference enabled, MATLAB automatically specifies the recommended number of computational threads, although you can change that value. On AMD-based Linux platforms, MATLAB supports multithreaded computation, but requires an extra step to change the default BLAS."

Doesn't sound a very nice way to do it, and certainly lacks user control, but it's a start. I didn't upgrade to the new version yet, so I can't talk from experience. Also, the new release seems to include improvements to the Distributed Computing Toolbox, which sound also very interesting.