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Apple Behind Intel's USB Competitor?
We recently discussed Light Peak, Intel's upcoming, optical interconnect technology that boasts data transfer rates of up to 10 Gbps. While some have speculated that Light Peak will directly compete with USB 3.0, Engadget has now unearthed information that indicates the idea for the technology originated from Apple, who apparently asked Intel to develop it.
"According to documents we've seen and conversations we've had, Apple had reached out to Intel as early as 2007 with plans for an interoperable standard which could handle massive amounts of data and 'replace the multitudinous connector types with a single connector (FireWire, USB, Display interface).' ... Based on what we've learned, Apple will introduce the new standard for its systems around Fall 2010 in a line of Macs destined for back-to-school shoppers — a follow-up to the 'Spotlight turns to notebooks' event, perhaps. Following the initial launch, there are plans to roll out a low-power variation in 2011, which could lead to more widespread adoption in handhelds and cellphones. The plans from October 2007 show a roadmap that includes Light Peak being introduced to the iPhone / iPod platform to serve as a gateway for multimedia and networking outputs."
Put it on iPods and it becomes ubiquitous almost immediately. They could charge extra for a usb cable or dock.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
So you're saying Apple is behind this new technology coming from intel at their behest but it's all part of a scheme to devise a new technology that will get intel to compete with... intel?
Man, you must REALLY think Steve Jobs is clever! Imagine, getting intel to go into competition with itself!
USB now a days is often used to charge devices too, which is not possible with these optical interfaces. Because of this, I don't think this will have much future for portable devices, so nice try, but I'm not buying it.
"replace the multitudinous connector types with a single connector" = multitudinous connector types + 1;
Maybe you need to expand the collection. Even at 10Gbps, it would take me all day to transfer MY porn.
Yes.
Transferring a 100 MB app to my iPhone takes a noticeable amount of time, for example. A movie is worse. And things will get MUCH worse in the future, when we have higher resolution portable devices.
And what Apple wants to do with this interconnect is to replace things like DVI/Display Port, Firewire/USB, (e)SATA, etc., all on one bus.
You don't have to buy a $40 HDMI cable. If the cables you buy are that expensive, then you're just getting fleeced. Do the barest amount of research before you purchase.
Also, the cheap HDMI cables are more expensive than "ethernet patch cables" because of licensing, a more expensive connector, more wires, and more stringent requirements on the quality of materials. The cable costs more than a dollar because it's the equivalent of several CAT-6a cables. It's designed to transmit raw video data at 1920x1080p30. That's roughly 1.4Gbps. The standard even defines faster rates. You'd need 2-3 CAT6a cables to transfer video at that rate and still cover everything else HDMI takes care of.
USB dominates the peripherals market because it allows for cheep peripherals.
Monitor cables are specialised to not require the monitor to do much work.
Ethernet cables allow high transfer rates between expensive devices.
What is the market for this?
Will it require "expensive" tech on both ends or will the PC be able to do the lifting?
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
And what Apple wants to do with this interconnect is to replace things like DVI/Display Port, Firewire/USB, (e)SATA, etc., all on one bus.
I think this is probably what Apple is after. As I look at my Macbook Pro, I have the following connectors: MagSave (power), Ethernet, FW800, miniDP, USBx2, SD card, line-in, and headphones. You could probably get rid of Ethernet, FW, miniDP, and USB and replace them with Light Peak. Since I'm rarely using more than two of those at a time, you could probably reduce the number of ports and start shrinking devices.
The other thing that Apple seems to be targeting is the optical drive. I think you're going to see Apple dropping optical altogether, and moving OS delivery to SD cards. Most other software/media will be downloads.
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The internet is the greatest source of biased information in the history of mankind.
We'll have to see if Apple has learned anything. I first heard about FireWire in maybe 1993. I went to work at Apple in 1995 and met with the people developing FireWire and there was lots of talk about having devices natively support it, yada yada. It didn't make it into shipping Apple hardware until 1999. Besides being late to market, Apple insisted on charging licensing fees to everyone who incorporated FireWire.
Had FireWire been out in 1996, they might have been able to get away with the licensing fees. Had they forgone the licensing fees in 1999 they might have kept USB a low-speed interconnect.
In order to succeed in today's market it will need to offer technical advantages over USB 3.0 and not come with a price premium. Having Intel introduce is a pretty strong first step. We'll have to see how the rest of it plays out.
You're wrong. USB is and was for hooking up peripherals like keyboard/mice/printers/low-bandwidth devices to effectively replace the old RS-232 serial and parallel ports of yore. USB was never intended to replace the interface that goes to your monitor, your hard drives*, and your ethernet.
* Yes, we're all aware of USB storage, but see all the comments above about how even low-end devices today can swamp USB... if USB was so great for this then eSATA never would have come into existence.
This new standard appears to be point-to-point and with all the knowledge we have now it will hopefully be efficient. Additionally, 10Gbps is the starter speed... Intel was talking about scaling it to 100Gbps without too much difficulty.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Optical may have outlived its usefulness for storage and backup, but it hasn't outlived its usefulness as a distribution medium. It is a lot cheaper for a software vendor to ship out their software on ~10-cent DVDs rather than ~$5 SD cards or USB drives. Entertainment firms especially like optical disks because in addition to being cheaper, they are also more fragile and harder to use with computers rather than locked-down, purpose-built, stand-alone players. Computers can better do unwanted things like skip the mandatory 30 minutes of previews, transfer the files to another medium, or strip out DRM altogether, so the entertainment firms want to discourage the playback of their files on computers as much as possible. The obvious distribution method of using the Internet is even more unappealing to software and entertainment distributors as they think it makes piracy easier and makes their ridiculous pricing schemes based on "scarcity" look that much more ridiculous.
So while putting things on optical media may be pretty much useless for customers, suppliers love it and that's why we won't see optical media die for a good, long time.
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
what you clearly meant to say was "bears repeating"
Well, yeah. That goes without saying.