February 1, 2012

Will The First Thunderbolt Peripheral Be The iMac?

We have barely scratched the surface of that this little cable can do!

Apple and Intel introduced the impressive new Thunderbolt interconnect last month on the MacBook Pro line, but folks like me who bought one have nothing to connect to yet. It was exciting to see the wide variety of Thunderbolt peripherals on display at the NAB show in Las Vegas last week, but none of these will ship to end-users before the middle of the summer. But evidence is mounting that Apple will be the first out of the gate with a Thunderbolt peripheral, it just won’t be the sort of peripheral you might expect. I am hearing rumors that the new iMac, to be introduced this month, will be both a Thunderbolt host and peripheral in one! Read on for what this means in the real world.

Why the iPad 2 Won’t Include Thunderbolt

Will the iPad 2 sport a high-speed "Thunderbolt" port? Don't bet on it!

Today is the big “coming out” day for Thunderbolt (nee Light Peak), courtesy of Intel and Apple’s new lineup of MacBook Pros. Next week is the introduction of another “Magical and Revolutionary” Apple product, the iPad 2. Inevitably, pundits are putting 2 and 2 together and deducing that the future iPad will include this new I/O port. But this makes little sense. The iPad 2 won’t include Thunderbolt.

Thunderbolt = Light Peak = Mini DisplayPort + PCI Express

Thunderbolt (nee Light Peak) is here!

Apple unveiled their new line of MacBook Pro laptops today, complete with “Thunderbolt”, the trade name for a production packaging of Light Peak and Mini DisplayPort. After much speculation, we finally have some concrete information about Light Peak, and perhaps a peek into the next generation of I/O technologies!

Infographic: Real-World Port Throughput Relative To Light Peak

Port Throughput Relative to Light Peak

Just how fast is 10 gigabits per second anyway? To help out, I’ve prepared another napkin-tastic infographic!

HDBaseT – Everything Over Ethernet!

Will consumers bite on an Ethernet-based converged home theater interconnect?

Those of us in the IT infrastructure world know all about the tectonic trend of convergence on Ethernet. Just about everything, from SCSI to RDMA to PCI, is heading there these days. But Ethernet is conquering other worlds, too. A case in point: HDBaseT, the new standard for HDTV interconnect that sends audio, video, power, data, and USB over standard Ethernet cables!

Turn Your 27″ iMac Into An Awesome Monitor

The Mini DisplayPort connector can turn a 27" iMac into an expensive monitor

The Mini DisplayPort connector on the 27″ iMac is bi-directional, so you can connect another device to its gorgeous monitor! I was eager to try this out, and sure enough my 2009 Mac Mini had no trouble taking over the iMac’s display using a $30 Belkin cable. But actually using the iMac in this configuration has not been pleasant.