Apple and Intel Collaborate on Next Generation 'Light Peak' Connectors?

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/09/26/apple-and-intel-collaborate-on-next-generation-light-peak-connectors/)

Last week, Intel demoed (http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/23/intel-unveils-light-peak-10gbps-optical-interconnect-for-mobile/) a new interconnect technology called "Light Peak" which promises to be a flexible high performance optical connector:Intel just showed off a glimpse of the future: Light Peak, an optical interconnect for mobile devices that can run as fast as 10Gbps. That's fast enough to do everything from storage to displays to networking, and it can maintain those speeds over 100-meter runs, which is pretty astounding. Intel says the idea is to drastically reduce the number of connectors on mobile devices, which should allow them to get even smallerThe technology could eventually replace the use of Firewire, USB and even display connectors in the future. Engadget has since revealed (http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/26/exclusive-apple-dictated-light-peak-creation-to-intel-could-be/) that 'Light Peak' was actually originally conceived of by Apple and brought to Intel. 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)."The original conversations happened between Apple's Steve Jobs and Intel's Paul Otellini. In fact, the technology was said to have been demoed last week on a prototype Mac Pro motherboard.

The new connector is rumored to be introduced into the Mac lineup in the Fall of 2010, with a low-power variant due in 2011 for mobile devices. Such a move could result in a single connectivity standard in the future, reducing the types of ports on a device to only this single one. The fact that various types of data including High Definition displays can be driven through the connector has led to some speculation that Apple could incorporate such a connector into their rumored tablet.

Article Link: Apple and Intel Collaborate on Next Generation 'Light Peak' Connectors? (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/09/26/apple-and-intel-collaborate-on-next-generation-light-peak-connectors/)

[macshill]

A replacement for the USB drive? Blasphemy

[Flobber88]

Look forward to seeing that in the Macbook Pro's...:apple:

[simsandwhich]

Heard it transfers at 10GB/s. At the moment that's a BluRay movie in 30 Seconds. And plans for it to increase to 100GB/s within the next 10 years. :)

Also notable is that it can be used in Exchanges to speed up internet connections and phone calls/SMS... :cool:

[Eidorian]

Is this Star Trek?

[spillproof]

Finally, one port options! Now for a reduced number of audio and video file types.

[iVoid]

Sounds nice.

It would still need at least two copper wires to supply power to devices without their own power plugs. Only way to get power through optical would be to have little solar cells on the end. :)

[sammich]

Well, if this comes out in 2010, it'll make SATA3.0/eSATA/USB3/FW3200 all redundant before they get mainstream.

It might get a tad confusing if every connector on the computer has the same shape.

[mr_matalino]

THIS is what I've been waiting for! I'm so tired of 5 different ports with different cables and connectors! Give me ONE cable (or somehow do it all wirelessly ;) )!!!

[sammich]

Sounds nice.

It would still need at least two copper wires to supply power to devices without their own power plugs. Only way to get power through optical would be to have little solar cells on the end. :)

Yeah, it has incorporated copper wires for power. It's also robust and flexible enough to work even when tied into a knot (not a trivial thing with optical connections).

[CQd44]

Well, if this comes out in 2010, it'll make SATA3.0/eSATA/USB3/FW3200 all redundant before they get mainstream.

It might get a tad confusing if every connector on the computer has the same shape.

Haha, I was just thinking of that. Just color code them :]

[Mr. Gates]

Well,.... looks like I might hold out just a wee bit longer to get a new mac. This looks great! I hate messy cords all over the place. :rolleyes:

[simsandwhich]

Well, if this comes out in 2010, it'll make SATA3.0/eSATA/USB3/FW3200 all redundant before they get mainstream.

It might get a tad confusing if every connector on the computer has the same shape.

The idea is that any port can connect to any device that's Light Peak compatible. There's not gonna be any confusion with this one :)

[noodle654]

This sounds sweet. That is some serious speed. Only problem, that is one more interface to add on to the ever growing list of interfaces. FireWire 400 is dead, 800 by next year. USB 2.0 is going be dead soon, and 3.0 is nowhere to be seen. Very interesting stuff here.

[iVoid]

Haha, I was just thinking of that. Just color code them :]

Um...no...

The whole point is that all the connectors are the same. You can plug anything into any port.


So no DVI, HDMI, Displayport, USB, Firewire, ADB, TOS link, microphone, etc... Everything would plug into any LightPeak port reguardless of it's function.

Of course, for a while they'd have to have all the legacy ports until the device makers catch up.

[LEStudios]

Look forward to seeing that in the Macbook Pro's...:apple:

I'm looking forward to just seeing it! :eek:

[Mr. Gates]

This sounds sweet. That is some serious speed. Only problem, that is one more interface to add on to the ever growing list of interfaces. FireWire 400 is dead, 800 by next year. USB 2.0 is going be dead soon, and 3.0 is nowhere to be seen. Very interesting stuff here.

how is it you think USB 2.0 is dead or dieing? It seems to be everywhere !

[jaw04005]

At face value, it sounds more like a reincarnated ADC (Apple Display Connector) than a replacement for USB.

Additionally, it’s going to take a hell of a lot of marketing and arm twisting to get the entire peripheral industry to adopt Light Peak. I just hope Apple doesn’t go radical with it (like they did with USB 1.0, which worked in their favor).

The big question is why is Intel promoting USB 3.0 if they have Light Peak coming around the corner (2010). And why did Apple (who has never been afraid to develop a new standard) have Intel develop it?

Somehow this story doesn’t add up.

[longofest]

They JUST moved to mini display port for displays, and right now Apple only has one display that supports it natively. Fall 2010 seems a little quick to move to a new standard for display technology, but I guess it wouldn't be the first time Apple did that.

[Mr. Zorg]

It might get a tad confusing if every connector on the computer has the same shape.

Haha, I was just thinking of that. Just color code them :]

I don't understand. It doesn't matter which USB port you plug your mouse/keyboard/iphone/printer/scanner/thumb-drive into. Why? Because they all identify themselves over a common protocol. Why couldn't this connector do the same? It just has the ability to cover more uses such as video and networking because of its higher bandwidth abilities.

[bretm]

Heard it transfers at 10GB/s. At the moment that's a BluRay movie in 30 Seconds. And plans for it to increase to 100GB/s within the next 10 years. :)

Also notable is that it can be used in Exchanges to speed up internet connections and phone calls/SMS... :cool:

Gb not GB.

[miiles]

This would be amazing to see happen.

[winmacguy]

Demod on Youtube here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izNoF1SWtSg&feature=player_embedded

[Axemantitan]

Does it operate at peak speed all the time like Firewire does? USB 2.0 rarely operates above half its rated speed and often runs at USB 1.1 speeds. It only goes up to its maximum speed in short bursts.

[longofest]

Gb not GB.

... correct... little 'b' stands for "bits". big 'B' stands for Bytes. It's fast, but you're talking about a magnitude of 8 difference.

Generally, protocol transfer speeds are represented in bits per second, and storage mediums are represented in bytes.

[sammich]

I don't understand. It doesn't matter which USB port you plug your mouse/keyboard/iphone/printer/scanner/thumb-drive into. Why? Because they all identify themselves over a common protocol. Why couldn't this connector do the same? It just has the ability to cover more uses such as video and networking because of its higher bandwidth abilities.

I was thinking more along the lines of how current graphics ports are wired to the graphics chip. How would the mobo be designed to allow the GPU display output to any of the many LP (light peak) ports?

[Billy_ca]

I can't wait for the mini-DisplayPort to micro-LightPeak dongle to come out! :p

[sammich]

Will dongles be easy to manufacture? Say to ease the transition from USB, will USB-LP dongles be cheap to make? Also, will LP hubs (like USB hubs) be cheap too?

Gb not GB.

... correct... little 'b' stands for "bits". big 'B' stands for Bytes. It's fast, but you're talking about a magnitude of 8 difference.

Generally, protocol transfer speeds are represented in bits per second, and storage mediums are represented in bytes.

The calculation before was correct. A BR movie in 30 seconds at 10Gbps is 37 GB (seeing as everyone is clarifying/correcting things).

[RazHyena]

Now THIS is news. :)

Still a long ways off but very cool.

[Thex1138]

Remember the movie Aliens when the android Bishop remotely pilots the second drop ship from the Sulaco... his remote console plugs in to the up-link dish via optic cable connector...:cool:
Looks great :apple: !

[TheIguana]

I am glad Apple is thinking about cutting down on the cords. But, how exactly will my future iPhone charge with light?

[valvehead]

Optical certainly has its advantages in regards to bandwidth and noise immunity.

I'd be concerned about the durability and flexibility of the cables for portable use. Even if the cable can withstand repeated bending without breaking, a kink or sharp bend can stop the internal reflection (i.e. no light gets through). The Average Joe is not going to coil an optical cable neatly. He would fold it and knot it just like he would for every copper cable he has. He would then wonder why it suddenly quit working.

I am glad Apple is thinking about cutting down on the cords. But, how exactly will my future iPhone charge with light?

My guess would be that the cable would also contain two copper wires to supply +5V and GND.

[kousuke18]

Heard it transfers at 10GB/s. At the moment that's a BluRay movie in 30 Seconds. And plans for it to increase to 100GB/s within the next 10 years. :)

Also notable is that it can be used in Exchanges to speed up internet connections and phone calls/SMS... :cool:

10Gb not 10GB. Big difference :p

[i.mac]

I am glad Apple is thinking about cutting down on the cords. But, how exactly will my future iPhone charge with light?

easy... but you have to decipher my message below... :)


... start la;ksjdflwjeoriuq[iwjlckmlksajoqwop234asdbvbq[;lkpqoke[q89812wdwe;askzxcvbddwdkjfolihjoqw
... end.

[techgeek20]

Optical certainly has its advantages in regards to bandwidth and noise immunity.

I'd be concerned about the durability and flexibility of the cables for portable use. Even if the cable can withstand repeated bending without breaking, a kink or sharp bend can stop the internal reflection (i.e. no light gets through). The Average Joe is not going to coil an optical cable neatly. He would fold it and knot it just like he would for every copper cable he has. He would then wonder why it suddenly quit working.

You'd probably have to harden the cable enough that you can't fully bend it, but not too much that you can't coil it.

[arn]

here's a video of Intel demoing it on a Mac Pro (torn down)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khPx1dEIPnA

arn

[Mactagious]

Well, if this comes out in 2010, it'll make SATA3.0/eSATA/USB3/FW3200 all redundant before they get mainstream.

It might get a tad confusing if every connector on the computer has the same shape.

I think thats the point one connector for everything. Multiple ports of the same connector in which any device can be plugged in and be detected as the device in which its intended for.

[aristotle]

Is this Star Trek?
ODN conduit. ;) Steve Jobs has a 25th century time traveller held prisoner in his basement giving him plans for future technology.
:p

[rotorblade69]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/09/26/apple-and-intel-collaborate-on-next-generation-light-peak-connectors/)

Last week, Intel demoed (http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/23/intel-unveils-light-peak-10gbps-optical-interconnect-for-mobile/) a new interconnect technology called "Light Peak" which promises to be a flexible high performance optical connector:The technology could eventually replace the use of Firewire, USB and even display connectors in the future. Engadget has since revealed (http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/26/exclusive-apple-dictated-light-peak-creation-to-intel-could-be/) that 'Light Peak' was actually originally conceived of by Apple and brought to Intel. The original conversations happened between Apple's Steve Jobs and Intel's Paul Otellini. In fact, the technology was said to have been demoed last week on a prototype Mac Pro motherboard.

The new connector is rumored to be introduced into the Mac lineup in the Fall of 2010, with a low-power variant due in 2011 for mobile devices. Such a move could result in a single connectivity standard in the future, reducing the types of ports on a device to only this single one. The fact that various types of data including High Definition displays can be driven through the connector has led to some speculation that Apple could incorporate such a connector into their rumored tablet.

Article Link: Apple and Intel Collaborate on Next Generation 'Light Peak' Connectors? (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/09/26/apple-and-intel-collaborate-on-next-generation-light-peak-connectors/)



My my those devils hands have been busy!!!!




There is no replacement for optical. Remember optical is the quintessential data transfer GOD. nothing is better than it. When coppers gone the world will connect via glass and RF. Optical is more hardened in the actual cable its self.
Gee no wonder apple is all "what is this firewire you speak of" someone has seen the light at the end of the tunnel and we haven't even found the tunnel.
Although I see 2012 before its finally a standard.

This is commercial grade optical connectors and speeds at sub micro miniature consumer grade prices more than likely.

[jicon]

Kinda underwhelmed...

Yes, it is faster speed, but the cabling/connectors look quite pricey. For the comparisons used by Intel in the Youtube video linked here, optical cable is not cheap.

We're likely looking at fiber channel networking, maybe the odd display (though Display Port hasn't taken off, and VGA is still quite prevalent.) But, the influx of cheap printer connectors, cheap camera connectors, and cheap mouse connectors. Firewire lost out to USB in a lot of respects simply due to need, and costs involved in implementing... meaning that if we aren't committed to changing all our peripherals over to ones that utilize expensive cables, we're stuck with machines attempting to maintain backwards compatibility.

[anthonyjr]

Right off the heels of USB 3.0, Light Peak is advancing techn.... wait, you mean USB 3.0 might not even ship before Light Peak?

[SirOmega]

I was thinking more along the lines of how current graphics ports are wired to the graphics chip. How would the mobo be designed to allow the GPU display output to any of the many LP (light peak) ports?

I guess it would be possible to just have the PCI-E card push the video back to the motherboard and have it available to output on any of the LP ports on the mobo. 1920x1200x36b (12b/channel) is 83Mb/s on a 5,000Mb/s PCI-E-2 x16 channel. 2560x1600x36b is 150Mb/s. Even quad 30" ACDs would be 600Mb/s. So as long as the PCI-E chipset (or CPU in the case of lynnfield) could handle pushing that much data back out to a LP port, it would be OK, your graphics card just wouldn't have ports on the back anymore (probably another win for Steve).

Isn't this was USB 3.0 was supposed to be? Fiber optic with copper for power? Then everyone got bent out of shape and it went back to another set of copper wires.

This seems like a great technology. I guess as long as the cables are robust and don't break easily it'll be fine. 10Gb/s is a ton of data to push around. No more need for docking stations, just your monitor that has speakers, USB, etc and the keyboard/mouse plugged into it. You set your laptop down, plug in one cable for LP and one for power and thats it. I don't see much use for it as an internal connector (e.g. SATA), but who knows, if SSDs bump up against the 600MB/s ceiling of SATA 6Gb/s quickly then it'll be on to move them to LP (1250MB/s, more than twice SATA 6Gb/s, yea I know, its because SATA uses 10/8 encoding to transfer a byte in 10 bits, that would probably go away with LP).

What becomes the bottleneck isn't the transfer medium (the cable and sender/reciever transceivers), rather the Intel and AMD IO chips - if they can manage to push around 50Gb/s throughout the system without issue and heavy CPU intervention (I'm looking at you USB). Intel's IO chips are already becoming saturated with multiple SSDs in RAID configurations.

Finally, I hope they can push more power down the pipe vs what they can with USB now - 5V at 500mA is kinda weak. A full 1A would provide for 5W of power - definitely enough to power a HDD. Maybe not at a full 100m, but for shorter cables (less than 5 feet) they should be able to push 5W.

[dewser35]

At face value, it sounds more like a reincarnated ADC (Apple Display Connector) than a replacement for USB.

Additionally, it’s going to take a hell of a lot of marketing and arm twisting to get the entire peripheral industry to adopt Light Peak. I just hope Apple doesn’t go radical with it (like they did with USB 1.0, which worked in their favor).

The big question is why is Intel promoting USB 3.0 if they have Light Peak coming around the corner (2010). And why did Apple (who has never been afraid to develop a new standard) have Intel develop it?

Somehow this story doesn’t add up.

I love apple just as much as the next Mac lover, but the bottom line is that windows is still running on 80% of the worlds product. I see a play on this solely by apple carrying less weight than it being introduced for intel. SJ realizes that as much as he'd LIKE to control all electronic devices in his garden, people will always have outsiders that want to get in and he needs THEM to adopt the technology. It can't be forced upon them. Firewire is a good example of a great technology that struggled to get traction and acceptance. Just because something is faster (FW800), doesn't mean that device makers will go to it (USB 2.0). Seems pretty straightforward to me...

[cameronjpu]

The idea is that any port can connect to any device that's Light Peak compatible. There's not gonna be any confusion with this one :)

So what happens when I plug my external hard drive into my monitor connector?

[Eidorian]

ODN conduit. ;) Steve Jobs has a 25th century time traveller held prisoner in his basement giving him plans for future technology.
:pThis is all starting to make sense now.

Also, I'm glad someone else picked out the ODN reference there. It was glaring for me. :p

[kiljoy616]

Apple this time is been smart and is not going to keep it for only mac.

If this goes main stream, we could see a real bright future and not what we have now of so many different plugins.

Life is good. :)

[twoodcc]

sounds good to me. maybe with apple and intel on it, others will follow

[CQd44]

Um...no...

The whole point is that all the connectors are the same. You can plug anything into any port.


So no DVI, HDMI, Displayport, USB, Firewire, ADB, TOS link, microphone, etc... Everything would plug into any LightPeak port reguardless of it's function.

Of course, for a while they'd have to have all the legacy ports until the device makers catch up.

I would think that integrated graphics on a motherboard would have such a port connecting to its north bridge or some other onboard graphics processor that would make it matter.

I mean, yeah USB and things like that could easily be replaced. But display would be different I think. This is moot if you have a graphics card though or a sound card of course :]

[oldwatery]

I love it.
Nice one Apple / Intel. :D

[ltldrummerboy]

Wow, that is mind-blowing. Quite a leap from even SATA III (6 Gbps).

[jesaja]

So what happens when I plug my external hard drive into my monitor connector?

You're missing the point: There is no designated monitor connector, just a bunch of LP connectors, where you can plug in whatever you want, as long as it comes with LP - be it monitors, drives, network routers, whatever. The computer now recognizes what you have plugged in and internally routes the data from the port to he right places and back automatically.

Jojo

[MythicFrost]

Heard it transfers at 10GB/s. At the moment that's a BluRay movie in 30 Seconds. And plans for it to increase to 100GB/s within the next 10 years.

Also notable is that it can be used in Exchanges to speed up internet connections and phone calls/SMS...

Just so you know, it's not 10 gigabytes a second, it's 10 gigabits (gbps), it's more like 1.5GB/s.

Kind Regards

[CQd44]

You're missing the point: There is no designated monitor connector, just a bunch of LP connectors, where you can plug in whatever you want, as long as it comes with LP - be it monitors, drives, network routers, whatever. The computer now recognizes what you have plugged in and internally routes the data from the port to he right places and back automatically.

Jojo

For some reason, I think this would have some sort of negative impact on performance as opposed to just having dedicated ports. I hope I'm wrong.

[aristotle]

For some reason, I think this would have some sort of negative impact on performance as opposed to just having dedicated ports. I hope I'm wrong.
Watch the Youtube demo video.

[xIGmanIx]

knowing apple though, you will only get one connector on anything but the top of the line models

[ozyr]

Finally, one port options! Now for a reduced number of audio and video file types.

You said it. This is just astounding. Can't wait till this hits Macs next year (I hope)! :cool:

[Mac_Freak]

Since Light Peak is bi-directional and allows for video streams, would this mean that finally we will be able to capture video (from video camera, BluRay Player, other computer or source). That would be great news for anyone who does live video stuff. I can only imagine hooking up couple sources to my laptop and using it as a video mixer for VJing or simply capturing raw HD video to drive.

[paradillon]

Exciting products are driving this innovation.

Beyond just the natural progression and evolution of speed,
It's the Apple engineers in their labs developing products that drive the need for the capabilities of this connection.
The end result is game changing products we use the way Steve sees us wanting to use them.

Just when companies think they get a foot in the game with Apple, Apple changes the playing field.

[SeanMcg]

I love the fact that they used Mac OS X to demo this technology. Not Windows, which has the 80+% market share, or some flavor of Linux. If Apple did design this, it isn't a big surprise; Apple really likes optical, what with having optical audio in/out even on the iMac and laptops.

I don't see any problem with confusing devices. Like other peripheral bus standards, I'm sure that devices will have identifiers (how long before Palm spoofs an Apple ID :D ) Note, that the demo referred to one of the components in the system as a router, so traffic gets sent where it needs to be, I would guess.

As for other companies not adopting it, I don't think that will be a problem, if handled correctly. First, fewer connectors means less complexity for devices. (e.g. a quad interface external drive vs a single interface). Apple was smart to take this to Intel. Intel's got the R&D to really develop this and has the respect of the Windows world. Not charging for the port, like FireWire, would also help adoption. Granted, legacy equipment will mean older ports being on machines for a while (P/S 2, anyone?).

Can't wait to see it in production.

[yoak]

Guess the hard drive manufacturers are happy. Time to upgrade all those USB, fw400 & fw800 etc connected back up disks. I'm looking foreward to LP, but it will be costly

[3247]

I guess it would be possible to just have the PCI-E card push the video back to the motherboard and have it available to output on any of the LP ports on the mobo. 1920x1200x36b (12b/channel) is 83Mb/s on a 5,000Mb/s PCI-E-2 x16 channel. 2560x1600x36b is 150Mb/s.It's 83 Mbit per frame, not per second (unless a refresh rate of 1 Hz is enough). At the usual 60 Hz, the data rate would be 4977 Mbit/s. This is why HDMI 1.3 introduced data rates up to 8 Gb/s (original HDMI allowed 4 Gb/s on a single-link connection).

On the other hand, if you have onboard graphics, linking the GPU to the LightPeak connector with sufficient speed is no real problem. Its only a problem if you want to have swappable graphics cards and they need to use a standard PCI-E interface.

[SeanMcg]

knowing apple though, you will only get one connector on anything but the top of the line models

Understand the sentiment, but eventually, they wouldn't have to make trade-offs between what ports to make available; USB, FW400, & FW800, and display port could each be replaced with a separate LP port. "Could" be; with this design, one port is all that would be necessary, but reality would dictate multiple ports.

What I envision happening, a la the FW 800 port (sort of), is the removal of a port that people are still using.

[DMann]

This is all starting to make sense now.

Also, I'm glad someone else picked out the ODN reference there. It was glaring for me. :pAs long as we can align the ODN matrices with the phase inducers, we'll be able to restore warp drive.

[MattInOz]

I guess we know now why usb dropped the optical.
What would be a great move by Apple would be get this built into the magsafe connector and included this new connector as part of the spec, they would have a 6 to 12 month advantage and good drive for adoption.

I can see this going into Monitors first so they could act as one wire docking stations. With a router inside to spin out USB, network (both legacy and LP). Could as also spin out a daisy chain DisplayPort connector.

You could see hotels considering such a thing gives you internet access but you could also watch your movies or they could sell/hire you a movie to watch on the in room TV.

I can see all sorts of people being interested if it was cheap enough.
I hope Australia's Boardband Team are seriously looking at this. 100m cable that sure solves the final yard problem.

All really interesting stuff.

[Lesser Evets]

This is quite amazing: a true leap of connectivity.

Seems things are changing again. If this is used in a tablet arriving in only a few months, I'd be surprised. It would make sense, but seems expensive at this time for a tablet looking to be cheaper than Macbooks already slated to reduce in price.

Kinda underwhelmed...

Yes, it is faster speed, but the cabling/connectors look quite pricey.

Bet you would have been impressed if Ballmer invented it.
So would I, actually.

The reason anything is expensive is because it is made with rare materials or rare manufacturing technique. If this becomes a standard connector, cables will be cheap as dirt and everyone will make them... most likely.

[jbernie]

here's a video of Intel demoing it on a Mac Pro (torn down)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khPx1dEIPnA

arn

So what happens when I plug my external hard drive into my monitor connector?

If you all watch the brief video that Arn linked too you would see that the motherboard (?) has a light peak "router" on it so all traffic from the cables will probably go through the router and be directed to/from the correct component.

Think of light peak as a high speed freeway, an autobahn so to speak for a computer, the road surface is the cable, the on/off ramps are the devices, you don't identify yourself to the road, it just acts as the method of transmission, you can drive anything you like on the road, bike, car, truck, bus, horse & cart or just walk. The road doesn't care, it just allows you to move.

When data is transmitted from the device (on ramp) to the OS components (off ramp) it follows a repeatable path, so basically you have vehicles going back and forth between two points on the highway.

I would presume that the devices might need to identify themselves, I think USB devices do something like this anyway.

I don't see manufacturers having many issues with implimenting it, they will love having only one cable type, just of different lengths. Companies like Apple & Sony will be the likely leaders as they are the premium brands so the extra cost of such technology won't %% wise throw the prices off too much.

It would be interesting to see if this could be pushed further to all audio/video technology and replace HDMI and all the other connectors we have now, one cable type for all your home computer & audio/video needs is a perfect world. And on such a large scale the economies of scale would occur pretty fast on the basic cables.

[adamw]

Wonderful! Light Peak sure looks like it has potential, and will avoid the USB/Firewire problems of the past. I am glad that Apple seems to be stepping up first working with Intel to get this to be a universal standard, and not just a proprietary Apple one first. With Intel on board, Apple can exploit Light Peak in their many electronics products, and the ramp up of scale should reduce this optical equipment pricing for both vendors and customers alike.

[DMann]

I guess we know now why usb dropped the optical.
What would be a great move by Apple would be get this built into the magsafe connector and included this new connector as part of the spec, they would have a 6 to 12 month advantage and good drive for adoption.

I can see this going into Monitors first so they could act as one wire docking stations. With a router inside to spin out USB, network (both legacy and LP). Could as also spin out a daisy chain DisplayPort connector.

You could see hotels considering such a thing gives you internet access but you could also watch your movies or they could sell/hire you a movie to watch on the in room TV.

I can see all sorts of people being interested if it was cheap enough.
I hope Australia's Boardband Team are seriously looking at this. 100m cable that sure solves the final yard problem.

All really interesting stuff.The overall potential of Light Peak is insane! All data/media/power/networking via one single port and cable, capable of transferring 10 Gb/sec by this time next year, and 100 Gb/sec in the not so distant future. This changes the entire playing field, especially for editing HD media on the fly, and for multitasking and coordinating hard drives and interfaces at "light speeds." LP is well beyond game changing - it's game defining.

[jb510]

Has anyone seen what the target pricing for this is supposed to be? In the video listed in the comments the tech guy says it's an order of magnitude cheaper than a 10Gbps telecom switch.... but I don't know what those cost.

I know that the USB 3 spec for a while was going to be optical but they changed it because both optical switchs and optical cables were way to expensive.

Personally I'd love to see USB/Firewire/eSATA all get replaced with one standard.... How much is the hub going to cost though that turns one or two LightPeak ports into enough to run multiple external drives, monitors, keyboards, etc... The nice thing about USB is it's dirt cheap. Then how much is the hub going to cost that turns a LightPeak connector into a 4 USB ports or 4 Firewire ports?

[sam10685]

It might get a tad confusing if every connector on the computer has the same shape.

Please read the article before you post. ;)

[Erasmus]

Wow! How awesome is this? I hope this results in the end of USB, Firewire, Ethernet, etc. as well as some internal cables too.

I would expect the transmit/receive units would be comparatively expensive, at least for a while, but the cables should be dirt cheap, with almost no limit to the length they can be made.

I'm disappointed it only runs at 10 Gbit/s, and taking 10 years to get to 100. In terms of optical communications, that is pretty pathetic (although granted not for such a small unit). Hopefully with some further miniaturisation and research Intel should be able to kick it up to a Tbit/s before too long.

[sushi]

Finally, one port options! Now for a reduced number of audio and video file types.
That would be nice. Fewer ports would definitely be welcomed.

[lostngone]

To completely replace USB it is going to have to be cheap to license and cheap to manufacture. No one is going to want to buy something like a wired mouse if the Light Peak chip and emitter costs the manufactures $10 to produce/license.

The other problem is how am going to charge all my devices with Light Peak? Someone had better figure out wireless charging or build induction pads in my computer and ipod.

[Erasmus]

The other problem is how am going to charge all my devices with Light Peak? Someone had better figure out wireless charging or build induction pads in my computer and ipod.

There's nothing wrong with sticking a pair of copper wires alongside the fibre optic cables. DC charging cables can be very long without losing much power, and of course will not significantly affect the cost of the cables.

[stevenshizzle]

Is this Star Trek?

Don't worry. Isolinear chips and bio-neural circuitry are next.

[Macinposh]

Very nice! Hopefully the days of the snakepit are over..


I wonder if the technology allows for external hubs?
I mean one cable out to a external 8 port hub,that could route the
data to the right place.Display(s),HDDs,ODDs,interwebz etc..
Or is it forced solely to computer-target unit type of connectivity?
It would be nice if you could just route the stuff out of the computer
via one port to a hidden hub,that would route the stuff further.


And I think production houses (video,music) will be happy when this
will make it´s breakthrough. Simplified cabling,less interference etc..
Nice.

[lostngone]

There's nothing wrong with sticking a pair of copper wires alongside the fibre optic cables. DC charging cables can be very long without losing much power, and of course will not significantly affect the cost of the cables.


Why go through all that work to take electrical impulses convert them into optical impulses and then most likely have to convert them back at the other end if you are going to run copper with the optical. Sure Optical is faster now but if history shows us anything they will be able to get copper up to that speed in a short time. The only thing I see as a benefit of optical over copper is distance but 90% of the time when I am at my desk this isn't a problem.

Don't get me wrong I like the idea.

[rowanmwilliams]

I am just awestruck by this, the possibilities and uses are almost endless. I cant wait for this to go mainstream and i hope it catches on.


I wonder if the technology allows for external hubs?
I mean one cable out to a external 8 port hub,that could route the
data to the right place.Display(s),HDDs,ODDs,interwebz etc..
Or is it forced solely to computer-target unit type of connectivity?
It would be nice if you could just route the stuff out of the computer
via one port to a hidden hub,that would route the stuff further.


I would imagine it would, i think it would act the same way as a usb hub but faster and for more devices. Well i hope it will anyway.

PS. Light Peak sounds very Apple. :apple:

[ShnikeJSB]

This really doesn't mean squat if our storage media can't keep up with it... At it's supposed release date around this time next year, show me some fast new-gen SSD's that are somewhat affordable in larger capacities (let's say, 640GB for <$400) running at the full SATA-6gbps standard, and then maybe we'll talk fast connectors. :rolleyes:

[DMann]

This really doesn't mean squat if our storage media can't keep up with it... At it's supposed release date around this time next year, show me some fast new-gen SSD's that are somewhat affordable in larger capacities (let's say, 640GB for <$400) running at the full SATA-6gbps standard, and then maybe we'll talk fast connectors. :rolleyes:Hopefully, the advent of LP will accelerate manufacturer's efforts toward development of drives which will take advantage of it.

[Full of Win]

I'm a little confused how this works.:confused: Does one cable go between the computer to an external hub and you then plug your monitor, external hard drive, printer, ect.. into that?

[talkingfuture]

Thats an interesting technology, good to see Apple involved at the cutting edge. I suppose the key to it now is getting lots of compatible devices to plug into it. I guess there will be a couple of years of having computers with the new port and all the old ones that we still need.

[MorphingDragon]

Why go through all that work to take electrical impulses convert them into optical impulses and then most likely have to convert them back at the other end if you are going to run copper with the optical. Sure Optical is faster now but if history shows us anything they will be able to get copper up to that speed in a short time. The only thing I see as a benefit of optical over copper is distance but 90% of the time when I am at my desk this isn't a problem.

Don't get me wrong I like the idea.

We wont see the true benefits of optical until all of computing is using the same processing medium. Theres no point sending the data through optical just to have to convert it back into electrical charges.

Thats a fair way off because basic quantum computers are still LN2 cooled. (Reminds your of the IBM OIL Cooled mainframes huh?)

[flottenheimer]

"Wooot! Light Peak only... WTF. Gimme back my Firewire or I'm switching to PC. Apple has really lost their way..." Blah, blah, blah...

I've been waiting for this to happen for ages. Bring it on. I wont complain.

[Stuart in Oz]

I'm disappointed it only runs at 10 Gbit/s, and taking 10 years to get to 100. In terms of optical communications, that is pretty pathetic (although granted not for such a small unit). Hopefully with some further miniaturisation and research Intel should be able to kick it up to a Tbit/s before too long.

When you bring in a new product, it obviously needs to be better than the existing alternatives, but you don't want to be too much better. Twice as fast is good - 100 times as fast is bad. The reasons are partly customer psychology, partly smart business practices.

If the new product is too far ahead of the current market, people often can't get their head around it, or see a value, or they assume that something, somewhere, must be wrong because it just couldn't be that much better, for such a low price. It's not rational - it's instinctive, and most marketers know it.

Also, why give everyone 100Gb speeds today, when you can sell them 10Gb for 3-5 years, then get everyone to upgrade to 50Gb for the years 6-10, then get them to upgrade to 100Gb after that? It's 3 bites at the sales cherry instead of one.

...it’s going to take a hell of a lot of marketing and arm twisting to get the entire peripheral industry to adopt Light Peak.

...why did Apple (who has never been afraid to develop a new standard) have Intel develop it?

This is the really interesting development, and it suggests that Apple have learnt from their mistakes with FireWire.

If you want your new idea to become a universal connector for everything, what better way than to have it built onto every Intel chipset that ships around the world?

Apple tried keeping FW closer to themselves, and it failed (relatively speaking) so now they are ensuring that Intel will make Light Peak a standard for them.

I suspect also that this technology requires integration right onto the main chipset - which means they had to get Intel involved. There needs to be a Light Peak router (as seen in the demo videos and documentation), and that needs to live on the chipset, I think. That way it can pass the data between any component - HDD to main bus, graphic card to monitor, HDD to another HDD, etc. If you want to replace all other internal and external cables, then you have to be on the chipset. And who makes the most chipsets in the world?

Finally, the way Light Peak is an encapsulation technology for any protocol you fancy is excellent - that gives it indefinite lifespan. As higher layer protocols for networking develop, the lower level LP technology just keeps soldiering on underneath.

For those wondering what I mean, think of Light Peak as a bus (the going to school kind). Any number of different people can climb onto a bus and go to the destination. There could be a nun, a businessman and road sweeper, all on the one bus.

Light Peak is like the bus and the passengers are Ethernet, SCSI, SATA, whatever. They can all be parceled up and transported inside the Light Peak 'bus' and when they get off at the other end, they are still Ethernet, SCSI and SATA. They just became bus passengers for a while. New protocols are like new passengers - Light Peak will still happily carry them to where they want to go, whoever they are and whenever they come along.

Why go through all that work to take electrical impulses convert them into optical impulses and then most likely have to convert them back at the other end if you are going to run copper with the optical. Sure Optical is faster now but if history shows us anything they will be able to get copper up to that speed in a short time. The only thing I see as a benefit of optical over copper is distance but 90% of the time when I am at my desk this isn't a problem.

Limits are being hit with copper due to the fundamental laws of physics, at least as we currently understand them. The speeds we are getting out of cables (and individual processors for that matter) are getting so high, that the clock cycles are starting to break down.

ie: the voltage changes between each clock cycle aren't able to rise and fall as far as they need to before the next pulse is already coming along. So they get muddied up with each other. Which is really, really bad.

That's one of the reasons why we are going to multi-core machines instead. If you can't make one processor faster, use two processors instead. ;)

[MattInOz]

I'm a little confused how this works.:confused: Does one cable go between the computer to an external hub and you then plug your monitor, external hard drive, printer, ect.. into that?

It could work a number of ways.
A device could have direct support.
Seeing as the basic chip they had has support for two ports i guess at it's most basic a device would have ports to allow daisy chaining like firewire did.
They also show those chips hooking to a router chip, which could be used to build hubs like a network hub.

I them mean time till native support is more wide spread. A LP device may be a bridge for other connections like usb. So you might buy a USB hub that connects to the computer by a LP.

More likely you get a hybrid a device that has value with native support like a monitor or external drive will offer USB hub as well.

[odedia]

Translated: ANOTHER type of apple display connector to replace the display miniport.

which replaced DVI.

Which replaced the apple cinema connector.

[MorphingDragon]

Translated: ANOTHER type of apple display connector to replace the display miniport.

which replaced DVI.

Which replaced the apple cinema connector.

Oh no she di'nt!!!...

Sorry. :o

[kurosov]

Personally I'd love to see USB/Firewire/eSATA all get replaced with one standard.... How much is the hub going to cost though that turns one or two LightPeak ports into enough to run multiple external drives, monitors, keyboards, etc... The nice thing about USB is it's dirt cheap. Then how much is the hub going to cost that turns a LightPeak connector into a 4 USB ports or 4 Firewire ports?

Keep in mind USB cables where not always cheap. Mass Adoption means mass production. Mass production forces down price.

The question is how long will it take for this technology to reach the internals of a system, allowing companies like alienware to 'play' with the light in expensive, eye-candy gaming rigs.

[no.1 Apple Fan]

That was incredible.

[MorphingDragon]

That was incredible.

Umm...

Is there a brain in there? Capable of sentient thought and stringing full sentences that make sense?

[toke lahti]

I am glad Apple is thinking about cutting down on the cords. But, how exactly will my future iPhone charge with light?
My guess is that 7g iphone's whole enclosure will be solar cell.
Next thing is that everybody will print solar cell wallpapers with their home printers and cover their houses and rooms with them...

[toke lahti]

So what happens when I plug my external hard drive into my monitor connector?
Same thing that happens when you now plug your mouse(USB) to your hard disk's (USB) connector.

[toke lahti]

Right off the heels of USB 3.0, Light Peak is advancing techn.... wait, you mean USB 3.0 might not even ship before Light Peak?
Usb3 will be on market within this year. LP might get more common somewhere around 2012...

[toke lahti]

Why go through all that work to take electrical impulses convert them into optical impulses and then most likely have to convert them back at the other end if you are going to run copper with the optical. Sure Optical is faster now but if history shows us anything they will be able to get copper up to that speed in a short time. The only thing I see as a benefit of optical over copper is distance but 90% of the time when I am at my desk this isn't a problem.
10Gb copper ethernet is just around the corner, but I'll guess that it will be very hard to get any faster with 100m lengths, that are needed in the specs so that houses can be networked with it.
So the future is optical and billions of e2o- & o2e-converters...

[sammich]

And the beauty of optical cable is (provided they manufacture it this way, which they should) is that it's almost perfectly forward-compatible with any updates. If you think about how ethernet has many grades of cable (CAT5, CAT5e, CAT6 etc) to allow greater lengths and higher speeds and more noise reduction, well the same optical cable can be used when those 3 criteria are upgraded in the next generation (much like USB -> USB2). That single cable will be able to transfer at 10Gbit/s today, and that same cable will be able to transfer at 1 Tbit/s when the tech becomes available. Suck on that USB.

[toke lahti]

So no DVI, HDMI, Displayport, USB, Firewire, ADB, TOS link, microphone, etc... Everything would plug into any LightPeak port reguardless of it's function.
Microphone?
I don't believe there will be analog signal carried within LP...

[skate71290]

At face value, it sounds more like a reincarnated ADC (Apple Display Connector) than a replacement for USB.

Additionally, it’s going to take a hell of a lot of marketing and arm twisting to get the entire peripheral industry to adopt Light Peak. I just hope Apple doesn’t go radical with it (like they did with USB 1.0, which worked in their favor).

The big question is why is Intel promoting USB 3.0 if they have Light Peak coming around the corner (2010). And why did Apple (who has never been afraid to develop a new standard) have Intel develop it?

Somehow this story doesn’t add up.

Apple have only developed standards to work for there own products? If they push Intel to develop it and market it it will persuade more device makers? all im hoping is that the iphone and ipod cable gets changed - presume that the ADC cable will be changed? im hoping they manage to make an ethernet version as i would love lightning speed transfers to and from my TC :eek:

[mags631]

Who cares if the physical device-interconnect standard(s) have to change... this would be a great step forward in the right direction: greater simplicity and more power. I hope Intel (and if the rumors are true, Apple) are successful with this endeavor.

[haravikk]

This is pretty cool, just so long as we get more than one on the MacBook Air, and plenty on Mac Pros =)

It'd be nice to see some cheap adapters for this into a USB or FireWire hub. Does anyone know if the connector is designed to carry power, and if so how much? It'd be cool to just plug in a reasonably inexpensive USB hub, and then hook in any USB-powered devices you have, especially handy for getting a laptop/tablet set up on the go with minimum fuss.

[Erasmus]

Sure Optical is faster now but if history shows us anything they will be able to get copper up to that speed in a short time.

Copper will not catch up. The only electrical technology that is known about that has a hope of beating optical is carbon nanotubes, and that is a long way off. A single copper cable simply cannot contain such high frequency signals over any useful distance without a huge input of power, which will most likely lead to the copper melting. Optical systems do not have this problem.

There's no point sending the data through optical just to have to convert it back into electrical charges.

Not true, the shorter the cable, the less the inductance, and the less power needed to transfer super-high speed data. That means wires traveling between two CPUs (eg. QPI) can transfer more bits/s than similar wires connecting the CPU to your external SSD can without melting. Very short distances can remain copper, and will for a while at least.

It's 3 bites at the sales cherry instead of one.

Good point.

The question is how long will it take for this technology to reach the internals of a system, allowing companies like alienware to 'play' with the light in expensive, eye-candy gaming rigs.

Reaching the internals of a system, I wouldn't expect it to be long. Computer companies can have a bundle of copper wires leading from the CPU to the GPU, or just one or two Light Peak interconnects. Miniaturise Light Peak further, and you can print everything right on the circuit board, along with optical waveguides right there on the silicon, no more cables. I've worked for a research company successfully doing this, but the progress is slow. So slow you wonder if other technologies, like nanotubes, will beat optical technologies to the on-chip arena.

Oh, and the wavelengths used to transmit data are all infra-red. They are for telecommunications too, and that is unlikely to change due to efficiency and optical attenuation. So sorry, but no light shows. :p

[EagerDragon]

I would think every computer will have 2 to 4 of these connectors and that routers will be needed to take it further.

Imagine a bank of drives connected to a router along with the rewiring of your house to get at least one or two of these in every room and all those connect to the one router.

One would use wireless only when there is no other choice since it would be a lot slower than connecting to the wire.

But now intel has to sell it to Dell, and to disk and peripheral manufactorers to make it a go. No point in having it on your Mac if there is nothing that connects to it.

Just a guess here but this is likely to comeout on Mac Pro first and maybe on iMac and in 2011 it may come out on laptops. Not sure how power hungry it would be on a laptop with the light peak 2010 version.

Looks good, I am looking forward to rewiring the house with this and have all my computers connected at these speeds. A music and video server playing 5 or 10 different streams concurently would be a joy on this.

Correction: Replaced Router with Hub

[immaculate]

Here we go again - Apple/Intel are innovating again and making us all buy new cables and devices and such like, and all because they're miles faster and way simpler! How dare they! Why can't they stick to punched cards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card) as any sensible Luddite would?

[*LTD*]

Here we go again - Apple/Intel are innovating again and making us all buy new cables and devices and such like, and all because they're miles faster and way simpler! How dare they! Why can't they stick to punched cards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card) as any sensible Luddite would?

Is that a "hanging chad" I see? ;)

[toke lahti]

I wonder if the technology allows for external hubs?
I mean one cable out to a external 8 port hub,that could route the
data to the right place.Display(s),HDDs,ODDs,interwebz etc..
Or is it forced solely to computer-target unit type of connectivity?
It would be nice if you could just route the stuff out of the computer
via one port to a hidden hub,that would route the stuff further.
Hmm, let's look at year 2015:
I have this 3D-4k-display here which needs 12bit colors @ 200Hz (4096x2160x3x12x200)=63Gb/s...
So we don't have to go very far to the future to see that single 10Gb-link won't be enough for everything.
Also every port in LP hub has to have both optical-to-electrical & electrical-to-optical converters, so they won't be very cheap for the first years.

Now, with MBP, you need to carry mDP-adapter for display and fw800-adapter for fw400 devices. I guess that people won't accept many more adapters, so at least usb3 connectors will remain in computer. Also I think that they can't take ethernet away, so in the future we will still have at least 3 types of connectors in our computers. So that's only one less than now...

Or could LP replace ethernet? Could our local networks be built on LP? To connect all peripherals to home network and every display, blu-ray & STB could transreceive as uncompressed data?
That would make home network hubs easily pass need for 1 Tb/s routing speeds, so not in next decade yet...
And next thing we need is wireless 10Tb local networs! Peripheral companies have their roadmap already for year 2050!

[MorphingDragon]

Not true, the shorter the cable, the less the inductance, and the less power needed to transfer super-high speed data. That means wires traveling between two CPUs (eg. QPI) can transfer more bits/s than similar wires connecting the CPU to your external SSD can without melting. Very short distances can remain copper, and will for a while at least.


No, what I mean is. It will be limited by the conversion chip's operating frequency. So the data is really only being processed at the speed which the conversion chips operate. It just travels down the pipe a hell of a lot faster.

With Quantum, the signal can be sent and received as light. (Basic principle of quantum mechanics)

[Lesser Evets]

Makes me wonder if in maybe 2 years we will see a redesign of the floor macs, especially once this takes over USB and other input options. It's been 5 years of this design, which is getting on in years.

Without all the other connectors, they might be able to trim down the size and profile. It would be interesting if Apple began cramming the floor Macs down like they are all the other computers they make.

[jamesryanbell]

Well..........

That's pretty much the coolest thing I've seen in years.

[EagerDragon]

Makes me wonder if in maybe 2 years we will see a redesign of the floor macs, especially once this takes over USB and other input options. It's been 5 years of this design, which is getting on in years.

Without all the other connectors, they might be able to trim down the size and profile. It would be interesting if Apple began cramming the floor Macs down like they are all the other computers they make.

What do you mean by "floor" Macs?

[MorphingDragon]

What do you mean by "floor" Macs?

He forgot how to say Pro.

[wizard]

This sounds sweet. That is some serious speed. Only problem, that is one more interface to add on to the ever growing list of interfaces. FireWire 400 is dead, 800 by next year. USB 2.0 is going be dead soon, and 3.0 is nowhere to be seen. Very interesting stuff here.

I agree with everything disappearing with the exception of USB2. There would still be a need to support low speed devices, for example mouses, keyboards and the like.

However those USB2 ports may no longer be on the computers chassis. I could see Apple running Light Peak to a display where your USB ports would be.

This is all speculation on our part right now, as a result it will be interesting to see what Apples plans are. I suspect we are thinking to small here and Apples plans might not be fully exposed yet. But I will go out on a limb here with some predictions.

Extremely high resolution displays in the near future. Apple will probably shoot for 4k or better.
Tablets that hook up to your desktop over fast optical so that the system ends up working as one.
High speed solid state storage. Here this optical solution is desperately needed. The SATA solutions are dead in the water for the coming solid state solutions. Even 10Gbs is likely to be seen as slow in the future.
Very cheap clustering. This could give Apple a huge advantage in the medium end HPC arena. Apparently the connector supports two channels so out of the gate you could connect computers together at 20Gbs
Storage decoupled from your computers chassis. Imagine storage as a separate component you buy for your computer. External drives then becomes the norm. Now I don't like this idea personallly but can see advantages
A replacement or PCI Express for expansion cards. This would mean exactly the same interface for a board in the box or one a hundred meters away. This could lead to a whole new generation of I/O products.
Home theater. Given the bit rates, Apple could leap frog Bluray by several times.


In any event I suspect that Apples goals with this tech is storage, HPC, local clustering and displays. The only problem is that they think this is a year away. Frankly I kinda doubt that considering the quality of the demo. I'm kinda hoping that there is a Mac Pro rev early next year with this capability.


Dave

[Mister Snitch]

Um...no...

The whole point is that all the connectors are the same. You can plug anything into any port.

So no DVI, HDMI, Displayport, USB, Firewire, ADB, TOS link, microphone, etc... Everything would plug into any LightPeak port reguardless of it's function.

Of course, for a while they'd have to have all the legacy ports until the device makers catch up.

Right on all counts. It's such a fresh concept (and long overdue) that it's not surprising many will have a hard time getting their heads around it. ONE cable type for EVERYTHING.

But re legacy ports - you know how Apple (i.e., Steve) HATES legacy ANYthing. So I am wondering if they might push adapter devices, instead. Remember the original iMac, sans floppy? External floppy drives were the answer (the ONLY answer). I think Apple will push the envelope with this, the same way they did with the floppy, by making devices without legacy ports. Anyone with a legacy device (meaning just about everyone) would have to buy an external adapter. One such adapter might be capable of replicating many different types of ports.

Steve's plan will be that, if you want to get rid of that horsey adapter, you'll have to upgrade your various devices to the new standard. And to have an elegant Apple device hooked up to 'matching' elegant devices, people will spend the money (sooner or later). They will, because they always have.

The device makers will LOVE it.

[mmccaskill]

Yet again Apple leading the way in innovation.

[bassjunky]

Heard it transfers at 10GB/s. At the moment that's a BluRay movie in 30 Seconds. And plans for it to increase to 100GB/s within the next 10 years. :)

Also notable is that it can be used in Exchanges to speed up internet connections and phone calls/SMS... :cool:

The article says 10Gb, not 10GB. Learn the difference.

[Mister Snitch]

Storage decoupled from your computers chassis. Imagine storage as a separate component you buy for your computer. External drives then becomes the norm. Now I don't like this idea personallly but can see advantages


This is intriguing, but let's take it further. Perhaps Apple sees a day when ALL storage is in the cloud. You'll have a moderate amount of solid state storage in whatever device you are using (tablet, iPhone, iPod, laptop, iMac) and some kind of networked storage that complements it, sitting in a closet somewhere. Or - in that massive storage facility Apple has started building?

Then the only people with big hard drives attached to (or inside) their computers will be those using Mac Pros. Video editors, engineers, designers, that sort of thing.

[rumplestiltskin]

Sounds nice.

It would still need at least two copper wires to supply power to devices without their own power plugs. Only way to get power through optical would be to have little solar cells on the end. :)

Be afraid...

I've seen iMacs whose defective FireWire ports burned out camcorder FW ports (Rev C iMacs), defective cables or bad enclosures burning out Mac's FW ports.

As long as the power is kept very low (maybe just enough for USB hard drives), we shouldn't have a problem. Power over FireWire has always been a very bad idea.

[*LTD*]

This is intriguing, but let's take it further. Perhaps Apple sees a day when ALL storage is in the cloud. You'll have a moderate amount of solid state storage in whatever device you are using (tablet, iPhone, iPod, laptop, iMac) and some kind of networked storage that complements it, sitting in a closet somewhere. Or - in that massive storage facility Apple has started building?

Then the only people with big hard drives attached to (or inside) their computers will be those using Mac Pros. Video editors, engineers, designers, that sort of thing.

Well, I work entirely off the Cloud. I've got my entire Documents folder (~1,200 items) on my iDisk (of which there is a local copy on my desktop.) I've got a shortcut to my Documents folder in the Dock as well as the Finder sidebar. Whenever I work on a document the changes are uploaded automatically. I can work on my papers from anywhere in the world, and from any device, depending on its capabilities.

[BongoBanger]

Looks pretty cool although I imagine this will be available to all OEMs that Intel deal with since its their tech not Apple's.

[MorphingDragon]

Sounds nice.

It would still need at least two copper wires to supply power to devices without their own power plugs. Only way to get power through optical would be to have little solar cells on the end. :)

Laser light probably wont make the solar cells respond. Specially if its below the Green Hue.

[wizard]

This really doesn't mean squat if our storage media can't keep up with it... At it's supposed release date around this time next year, show me some fast new-gen SSD's that are somewhat affordable in larger capacities (let's say, 640GB for <$400) running at the full SATA-6gbps standard, and then maybe we'll talk fast connectors. :rolleyes:

Sure those are expensive PCI cards this year but who knows what the cost will be next year. The reality is that SATA 3 is a joke with respect to transfer speeds.

In anyevent it isn't an issue of the speed of one protocol that makes Light Peak interesting but rather running multiple protocols at once. I highlighted some of Apples potential uses above but have to think that they have a serious interest in using this in docking stations for future MBP. You would have one cord to connect your high and low speed devices.

Dave

[toke lahti]

Extremely high resolution displays in the near future. Apple will probably shoot for 4k or better.
Like: "3D-4k-display which needs 12bit colors @ 200Hz (4096x2160x3x12x200)=63Gb/s"
High speed solid state storage. Here this optical solution is desperately needed. The SATA solutions are dead in the water for the coming solid state solutions. Even 10Gbs is likely to be seen as slow in the future.
Sata is dead? Sata3 is 6Gb and available now. LP isn't available for years.
If you need fast storage now or next year, which would you choose?

Storage decoupled from your computers chassis. Imagine storage as a separate component you buy for your computer. External drives then becomes the norm. Now I don't like this idea personallly but can see advantages
Every other company than Apple knows this as eSata & iSCSI.
Nothing new here. You can use multi lane eSata and 16 lane pci express v3 delivers 16GB/s which is 128 Gb/s. LP will reach this, ummm, let's say year 2020?

[Airforcekid]

So USB 3.0 next gen firewire etc became obsolete before it was out man you cant future proof these days!

[rdowns]

Very smart move by Jobs giving this to Intel so it can become a standard. Were Apple to go it alone, we'd have another Firewire and MDP on out hands.

[toke lahti]

Well, I work entirely off the Cloud. I've got my entire Documents folder (~1,200 items) on my iDisk (of which there is a local copy on my desktop.) I've got a shortcut to my Documents folder in the Dock as well as the Finder sidebar. Whenever I work on a document the changes are uploaded automatically. I can work on my papers from anywhere in the world, and from any device, depending on its capabilities.
Good for you.
I work with video and amazingly can't use The Cloud at all.
Many times gigabit ethernet to NAS is too slow.
LP won't change this at all, unless your telco is offering you LP connection less than 300 feet away your house...

[Xibalba]

exciting technology - and as with any unreleased product - questions still remain. it would be interesting to see if this Apple/Intel development will become mainstream.

it certainly would be nice to consolidate ports for all connections and also to get such a significant boost in speed.

[Macinposh]

I agree with everything disappearing with the exception of USB2.I will go out on a limb here with some predictions.

Extremely high resolution displays in the near future. Apple will probably shoot for 4k or better.
Home theater. Given the bit rates, Apple could leap frog Bluray by several times.



Dave



Otherwise your list is plausible but those two points wont work out.
Well,not in the near future.
Apple will not pioneer mediaproduction technologies.
They just implement standards and design products depending on market demand.
At the moment in film production max feasible output is 4k. There is no production suites,cameras (exept few prototypes) or projection infrastructure in general for 4k+ production. And wont be for few years untill some 8k/superHD materiel will start to appear.
And it will take few years after that technology comes into the home market as there simply is no delivery systems for the media as the current or near future datatransport infrastructures just cant reach profitably big enough markets.


And for 4k displays...heh...apple would have to up the anté a bit in the gfx card department first...*****..the company is barely offering couple of year old gfx cards at dirty prices.Apple would offer 4k capable cards maybe in 2019.
Maybe.

[djellison]

Brilliant - Now Apple can sell LP-USB, LP-FW, LP-DVI, LP-VGA, LP-DLDVI adaptors at £20 -> £70 each to rip us all off a little bit more.

[wizard]

Be afraid...

No just hope that Apple does a better engineering job along with their connector suppliers.


I've seen iMacs whose defective FireWire ports burned out camcorder FW ports (Rev C iMacs), defective cables or bad enclosures burning out Mac's FW ports.

What you fail to realize is that the power leads would be the only thing capable of carying power. Thus you can't short high voltage to signal lines. As to the actual power lines even those can be protected from shorts.


As long as the power is kept very low (maybe just enough for USB hard drives), we shouldn't have a problem. Power over FireWire has always been a very bad idea.

it was never a bad idea, just bad implementation. The fact is Firewire instigated many other power over xxx implementations. For example POE for one. The problem with the USB approach is the low voltage which limits power and distance.

Some how though I don't think this is a huge issue in Apples plans. I suspect that most devices will be self powered and fairly substantial. There is a lot of talk about getting rid of USB but I don't see that as Apples goal. Somethings just work well and don't need replacing.


Dave

[Flybye]

About damn time. I told myself this like 10yrs ago. "Why can't they make 1 data cable that supports everything and you can use it to connect to any port on the motherboard."

I failed, again. :( In the mid 90s, I saw some acrylic display box in a store and said to myself "Hmm, I bet that would make a really cool computer box." And look what happened in the late 90s. Transparent cases and acrylic computers starting comping up. I really need to start cashing in on my ideas!

[NintendoFan]

Optical certainly has its advantages in regards to bandwidth and noise immunity.

I'd be concerned about the durability and flexibility of the cables for portable use. Even if the cable can withstand repeated bending without breaking, a kink or sharp bend can stop the internal reflection (i.e. no light gets through). The Average Joe is not going to coil an optical cable neatly. He would fold it and knot it just like he would for every copper cable he has. He would then wonder why it suddenly quit working.



My guess would be that the cable would also contain two copper wires to supply +5V and GND.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUBRjiVhJTs

[*LTD*]

About damn time. I told myself this like 10yrs ago. "Why can't they make 1 data cable that supports everything and you can use it to connect to any port on the motherboard."

I failed, again. :( In the mid 90s, I saw some acrylic display box in a store and said to myself "Hmm, I bet that would make a really cool computer box." And look what happened in the late 90s. Transparent cases and acrylic computers starting comping up. I really need to start cashing in on my ideas!

Patent them first. And when the competition finally implements them, bill 'em!

[philipt42]

This would be so awesome for those of us who work with recording - hot pluggable, 10Gb/s rate = extremely high definition music. If they could replace firewire with this, it would just be...amazing.

[wizard]

Like: "3D-4k-display which needs 12bit colors @ 200Hz (4096x2160x3x12x200)=63Gb/s"

Call me old fashion but high bit depth and high refresh rates never came to mind. Niether did 3D for that matter.


Sata is dead? Sata3 is 6Gb and available now. LP isn't available for years.
If you need fast storage now or next year, which would you choose?

Yep completely dead. Look at it this way if you needed truly high speed is SS storage which interface would you choose, SATA or PCI Express. Even the low end netbook manufactures have seen the light here.

SATA is a legacy port that has been stretched beyond an acceptable extent.


Every other company than Apple knows this as eSata & iSCSI.

Yes in a sense, even Drobo has adopted iSCSI.

Nothing new here. You can use multi lane eSata and 16 lane pci express v3 delivers 16GB/s which is 128 Gb/s. LP will reach this, ummm, let's say year 2020?

Yeah that is all well and good but how far can you run those 128Gb/s PCI signals? Or for that matter the eSATA signals. The only thing that really comes close would be iSCSI. The reality is that both PCI and eSATA is crap for anything outside of the PCs box. Please don't try to convince me that eSATA was ever a good idea, it just isn't.

In anyevent it looks like those Light Peak connectors can support more that one channel which implies that two 10Gb/s channels. Even if that is not the case we are still 10 times faster than most current iSCSI implementations.



Dave

[subsonix]

It would be great IMO if all connectors could be replaced with one single highly capable general purpose connector.

[TheMechanic]

Well, I work entirely off the Cloud. I've got my entire Documents folder (~1,200 items) on my iDisk (of which there is a local copy on my desktop.) I've got a shortcut to my Documents folder in the Dock as well as the Finder sidebar. Whenever I work on a document the changes are uploaded automatically. I can work on my papers from anywhere in the world, and from any device, depending on its capabilities.

A bit off-topic, but how do you maintain an up-to-date copy of your iDisk on your local computer? Do you do it manually or automatically?
I'm interested in doing this my self, but I don't feel like paying for some kind of software for the syncing.

[hottyson]

Bold and smart move by Apple. They already have a stake in the music distribution business and are gaining control of that market.

Now is Apples move into the HD video market. Light Peak is one step to assist the elimination of Blu-ray. Video on disc media is so 1980's. We have moved away from /retrieve disc from storage case/eject/place disc on tray/load/press play. Media is much more convenient at your finger tip when you just point and click. Who will need Netflix or even Wal-mart if DRM free high quality media can be quickly downloaded from Apple via Light Peak?

The future is fiber and wireless. Light Peak is part of the Apple strategic plan to dominate everything that is not wireless. Other legacy connectors are dying. Hulu variants are replacing cable tv, so give me Light Peak to finally kill it off. Cellphone replaced plain old telephone lines so give me Light Peak to kill of the legacy ISP and telecommunication over copper. HDMI has already saturated the market and will take a while to die. However, when video/audio/storage medium/internet/telecommunication/all forms of media have adapted Light Peak, Apple will have made a bundle from just the licensing portion of its use alone. DRM shall also play a role in this. How? We shall have to wait and see.

USB is here to stay. It will remain the copper connection of choice for wired keyboards, mice and flash drives. Copper will not die it will just not be used for everything.

[flippo]

ONE port to rule THEM ALL !!!

sorry could not resist this. :)

[Saladinos]

When I heard about LightPeak, "MacBook Air" was my first thought.

By using only one connector on the entire machine (except power obviously), Apple can seriously reduce the size of the machine and expand its abilities. They could then sell a docking station allowing connections to a monitor, USB and FW, Ethernet...etc. Or, knowing Apple and their aversion to docking stations, build one in to the monitor in the same way that they do with the LED cinema display.

Of course, for this to take off, it needs broad industry support. If you want a comprehensive standard that the whole industry will adopt, you're obviously going to want Intel to design it. This is literally what they do every day.

[VenusianSky]

It's about time we see advancements in optical cable technology. USB will still be relevant for devices that are USB-powered, but as for data only transmissions, optical and wireless have great advantages.

[shawnce]

It would be perfect to have a small simple and single connection between a laptop, enhanced iPhone/iPod, or *cough* tablet *cough* and an external display (power would be the only other connection needed, unless the proposed connector contains power pins). The display would contain ports for hardwire networks, USB, firewire, speakers, "web" camera, microphone, eSATA, etc. (much like Apple's and others current display products).

This would be Apple's answer to docking stations that often have rather large fixed connector(s) in slots on the bottom side of a laptop. Having a USB like connector gives you more use case coverage then the docking connector solutions currently and could be used by many more form factors other then just laptops.

I am fairly sure this is Apple's main goal with a secondary goal being the following...

As time passed USB, firewire, etc. - assuming adoption - could be replaced by this technology so you would get displays/hubs for this technology... all working with a single connector/cable type (likely will need mini variants). Storage devices, video cameras, video devices, audio devices, and sync targets like MP3 players, etc. would be perfect candidates to switch to this (assuming power and cost budgets make sense).

By using an optical connector you can get longer distances and higher-data rates (100Gb is already in the plans). Also many more options to improve throughput, etc. as optical transceiver/coder/router technologies improve without having to create new connector types.

If the communication technology used inherits and expands on FireWire... a single connector could mux several independent streams of data, including timing sensitive streams with low CPU overhead (later obviously would be needed at the data rates being talked about).

[DaBrain]

Haha, I was just thinking of that. Just color code them :]

Or just label them Like LP1, LP2 etc... or Label them by Device if we so wish! Pretty simple solution. I would love to see this come out soon. ;)

Some may ask why do this as their all the same? True. However, for those that bundle and tie wrap all their cables together it would help identify the ends of the LP cable, what device is connected to it for clarity. Ya never know perhaps your dog or what ever chews through a cable and you want to identify that one in the bundle! Yuk! Yuk?! Yuk!

[Saladinos]

Bold and smart move by Apple. They already have a stake in the music distribution business and are gaining control of that market.

Now is Apples move into the HD video market. Light Peak is one step to assist the elimination of Blu-ray. Video on disc media is so 1980's. We have moved away from /retrieve disc from storage case/eject/place disc on tray/load/press play. Media is much more convenient at your finger tip when you just point and click. Who will need Netflix or even Wal-mart if DRM free high quality media can be quickly downloaded from Apple via Light Peak?

The future is fiber and wireless. Light Peak is part of the Apple strategic plan to dominate everything that is not wireless. Other legacy connectors are dying. Hulu variants are replacing cable tv, so give me Light Peak to finally kill it off. Cellphone replaced plain old telephone lines so give me Light Peak to kill of the legacy ISP and telecommunication over copper. HDMI has already saturated the market and will take a while to die. However, when video/audio/storage medium/internet/telecommunication/all forms of media have adapted Light Peak, Apple will have made a bundle from just the licensing portion of its use alone. DRM shall also play a role in this. How? We shall have to wait and see.

USB is here to stay. It will remain the copper connection of choice for wired keyboards, mice and flash drives. Copper will not die it will just not be used for everything.

You seriously don't understand this stuff, do you?

[*LTD*]

A bit off-topic, but how do you maintain an up-to-date copy of your iDisk on your local computer? Do you do it manually or automatically?
I'm interested in doing this my self, but I don't feel like paying for some kind of software for the syncing.

Choosing automatic syncing puts a local copy on your desktop. I just put symbolic links to it. Does that answer your question?

[shawnce]

Who will need Netflix or even Wal-mart if DRM free high quality media can be quickly downloaded from Apple via Light Peak? Light Peak is not about long haul network connectivity. It is about a local interconnect between devices with enough bi-directional bandwidth to allow single connections to support a large number of input/output devices.

Fiber has/is/will be available to the home (or fiber like speeds) for network connectivity with data rates more then sufficient to pull down BD level content at greater then realtime speeds. Apple wont be the one doing this, Apple wont control this, and Apple wont be the only one able to leverage these faster data pipes into our homes.

..so what you posted doesn't make much sense, at least not the way you stated it.

[Evangelion]

Translated: ANOTHER type of apple display connector to replace the display miniport.

which replaced DVI.

Which replaced the apple cinema connector.

Anyone who thinks that this is just another display connector, is a simpleton. Yes, this can replace DVI or DisplayPort. But at the same time this can also replace FireWire, USB and host of other ports as well. Instead of having USB-ports, DP-port, FW-port etc., you could just have four LP-connectors. Having "generic" connectors like that would make the system a lot more flexible. You could plug several screens to the machine, or if you have no need for extra screens, you could then plug lots of peripherals instead.

[klagreca]

So you're telling me you're going to connect a mouse to an LP connector? The optical converting chip alone is going to drive up the cost of cheap hardware, where the cheapest mouse is going to start at $45.

And if you have a Macbook Air or a tablet with one LP connector, you've used up that one port for a mouse. You'll have to buy a $75 LP hub, and hope the one pipe going to the hub doesn't become a bottleneck when you have 2 or 3 data-intensive devices hooked up to the hub.

..just some thoughts.

K

[CrackedButter]

Looks pretty cool although I imagine this will be available to all OEMs that Intel deal with since its their tech not Apple's.

Proof that one does not read the article. It's Apple's tech.

Brilliant - Now Apple can sell LP-USB, LP-FW, LP-DVI, LP-VGA, LP-DLDVI adaptors at £20 -> £70 each to rip us all off a little bit more.

With it being an open standard you can buy the needed cables off somebody else OR don't buy them, because nobody said you had to. Your view is also very dim if you see no value in this technology or does everybody just want to moan these days.

Cool new tech comes out >>> bitch about how it costs.

I'm personally surprised it is coming out next year, I was going to upgrade next year as well!

[shawnce]

So you're telling me you're going to connect a mouse to an LP connector? Of course not... something like USB isn't going away anytime soon for low data rate / low cost devices...

This is - first - about providing a single connector that can transfer 10Gb (in both directions simultaneously, full-duplex). This would be used to connect a laptop or similar device to something like a display (or other breakout device). This display/breakout device would contain ports for current bus technologies. No other connection between computer and display would be needed. All other items would connect to the display including hardwire networking. ...everything would be muxed over this single connector.

Also it is possible that that a LP connector could contain USB pins, power pins, and the bi-directional optical channels. This would allow something like a mouse to ignore the optical aspect of the connector (cable would only contain wires for USB / power) and hence the costs involved. Not sure if they will go that route or simply continue to provide an independent USB connector for low-bandwidth / legacy devices (aka MBA would have one USB and one LP connector). ...basically much like how the 1/8 audio port on Apple's devices also contains an optical connection in addition to the traditional electrical rings (the cable / device used picks what type of connection it wants).

...don't ignore wireless technologies possibly becoming the primary connection for things like keyboards and mice.


(Of all the possible technologies holding up the release of an Apple tablet... this would be a good candidate.)

[scott911]

hope they learn from past - reversability of usb (although present connector looks square as well) and hdmi port fatigue.

[SAN66]

Might we see this in future generations of the iPhone? Much quicker transfer and updates, tethering through light peak.

Well except in Europe where Apple signed on to standardization of micro-usb connections.

[ZipZap]

This is coming. It will be accepted. It will be adopted. The cost will fall rapdily.

I see hubs that support both LP and that let you use legacy devices.

This cant hit the mainstream fast enough.

[CharBroiled20s]

Heard it transfers at 10GB/s. At the moment that's a BluRay movie in 30 Seconds. And plans for it to increase to 100GB/s within the next 10 years. :)

Also notable is that it can be used in Exchanges to speed up internet connections and phone calls/SMS... :cool:

The demo video said 10gb/s symmetrical (each direction) but that doesn't take into account protocol overhead. For 1000 base-T ethernet (gigabit ethernet) the protocol overhead is nearly half the theoretical maximum (1gb/s) so you only end up transferring files at around 500mb/s ... still not shabby.

My point is this; because this tech would be handling transport of multiple protocols simultaneously I wonder what the actual available throughput would be... It might be significantly less than half and possibly get worse as you add more and more disparate protocols.

They said in the youtube clip stated that the display was using 8gb of the 10gb available. I wonder if that included the display protocol overhead (the actual data throughput) or just the video data available to the display...

I have a bunch of questions but its still really cool stuff.

[toke lahti]

Call me old fashion but high bit depth and high refresh rates never came to mind. Niether did 3D for that matter.
Well, 30fps per eye might be enough for starters, but anyway this shows that 10Gbps isn't very much for very ong time.
Yep completely dead. Look at it this way if you needed truly high speed is SS storage which interface would you choose, SATA or PCI Express. Even the low end netbook manufactures have seen the light here.
SATA is a legacy port that has been stretched beyond an acceptable extent.
You call netbook's storage fast?
I call over sustained 1Gbps fast. To achieve that you used to need 6 number budgets with infiniband or fibre channel. With multilane eSata you can have this with less than tenth of the price.
Also, I can't understand how you can call something that is on the market and widely used and good for what's it for, more "dead" than waporware?
Yeah that is all well and good but how far can you run those 128Gb/s PCI signals? Or for that matter the eSATA signals. The only thing that really comes close would be iSCSI. The reality is that both PCI and eSATA is crap for anything outside of the PCs box. Please don't try to convince me that eSATA was ever a good idea, it just isn't.
eSata is good for what you originally wanted: local but external storage.
And iScsi works just fine through eSata.
For networked storage 10Gb ethernet will be cheaper than LP and even multilane LP will be oversaturated if there is many displays connected without very expensive LP routers here and there. So for the near future LP will be "one connector for all local" or "one connector not for all networked".

[Rocketman]

Well, if this comes out in 2010, it'll make SATA3.0/eSATA/USB3/FW3200 all redundant before they get mainstream.

It might get a tad confusing if every connector on the computer has the same shape.

Nope. The device end will still be standards non-compliant like they always are. So you will need a dongle or hub to plug in your USB-1/2/3, FW-400/800/3200, Ethernet-10/100/1000/10000, SCSI, AT, PCI, e-SATA, etc. But that one dongle will have one plug into your computer and your computer will have four such plugs. That's 40 gigabit/sec bidirectional. Your iPhone will only have one of them.

That double HD content they demoed is that Japanese double HD consumer broadcast standard.

http://www.red.com/developer
http://www.red.com/faq/category/epic/

From that link: "EPIC S35 5K uses a 13.8MP sensor, EPIC FF35 6K uses a 24MP sensor, EPIC 645 9K uses a 65MP sensor and EPIC 617 28K uses a 261MP sensor."

:)

Rocketman

I understand the protocol is more like Ethernet than anything else.

[djellison]

Your view is also very dim if you see no value in this technology or does everybody just want to moan these days.

Oh - there's huge value in it for Apple stock holders.

Apple will find a way to manipulate this technology to make it more profitable for them and more expensive for us - like using mini display port and it's DL-DVI adaptor that doesn't work.

[guzhogi]

Sounds cool, would be really helpful to have 1 plug for everything. Only a few concerns:

Power; will it have copper (or whatever material) wires to carry power? I don't want to have to have 2 plugs for a device when all I needed was 1 w/ Firewire/USB.

What if this doesn't catch on? That means 1 extra port on hard drives & whatever. There are some external hard drives out there w/ Firewire, USB & eSATA. We don't need 1 more thing that kinda catches on, but not well enough to get rid of everything else.

How will displays work? Since VGA, DVI, HDMI, go through the video card, would that mean that all connections (hard drive, ethernet, etc.) go through the video card? Or will graphics signals go to the video card and then back out to the Light Peak connectors? I can see a lot of latency in that.

For hard/flash drives, will this work more like firewire or USB? Although USB 2 is theoretically faster than FireWire 400, USB only gets its max speed in bursts while Firewire is more of a steady stream. I've heard that's because Firewire has a chip or something that handles a lot of the I/O stuff (like how some ethernet cards have TCP Offloading engines), but USB doesn't so everything has to go through the CPU. Although cheaper, USB is slower for real use.

[guzhogi]

The demo video said 10gb/s symmetrical (each direction) but that doesn't take into account protocol overhead. For 1000 base-T ethernet (gigabit ethernet) the protocol overhead is nearly half the theoretical maximum (1gb/s) so you only end up transferring files at around 500mb/s ... still not shabby.

My point is this; because this tech would be handling transport of multiple protocols simultaneously I wonder what the actual available throughput would be... It might be significantly less than half and possibly get worse as you add more and more disparate protocols.

They said in the youtube clip that the display was using 8gb of the 10gb available. I wonder if that included the display protocol overhead (the actual data throughput) or just the video data available to the display…

I agree, these protocols have quite a bit of overhead. Too bad it's so difficult to totally overhaul all these protocols. Make there as few protocols as possible that work great. Only real difference would be the physical medium the protocol goes over.

[CharBroiled20s]

Call me old fashion but high bit depth and high refresh rates never came to mind. Niether did 3D for that matter.

Yep completely dead. Look at it this way if you needed truly high speed is SS storage which interface would you choose, SATA or PCI Express. Even the low end netbook manufactures have seen the light here.

SATA is a legacy port that has been stretched beyond an acceptable extent.

Yes in a sense, even Drobo has adopted iSCSI.

Yeah that is all well and good but how far can you run those 128Gb/s PCI signals? Or for that matter the eSATA signals. The only thing that really comes close would be iSCSI. The reality is that both PCI and eSATA is crap for anything outside of the PCs box. Please don't try to convince me that eSATA was ever a good idea, it just isn't.

In anyevent it looks like those Light Peak connectors can support more that one channel which implies that two 10Gb/s channels. Even if that is not the case we are still 10 times faster than most current iSCSI implementations.

Dave

Agreed, eSATA is garbage, the connector is flimsy and I challenge you to run it more than 30 feet. SATA inside the computer is fine... mass storage devices can't touch current SATA speeds anyway.

LP looks to be 4 channel fiber! so you could conceivably run a cable longer than a network line with a HUGE jump in throughput... I'm geek'd over this thaaang! A common cable for EVERYTHING...

Imagine running one fiber line to every room of your house. You could keep your computer in the closet and just have a keyboard, mouse and monitor hooked up where you want to use it!

or

You could have 1 insanely fast computer with tons of storage in the basement and use this to bring your own Video on Demand service to every tv and computer in your house!


I WANT IT NOWWWWWWWWWWW!!!

:D

[Yvan256]

What's really funny (or sad) is all those pro-Microsoft, anti-Apple people talking about how Apple just wants to change things, how USB 2.0 is good enough, how FireWire "never catched on" (yeah right).

If nobody pushed forward we'd still be using floppy drives, parallel and serial ports, CGA graphics, etc. ;)

USB 3.0 was just a little push forward, relatively speaking. But this LightPeak thing seems like the next big step.

Why push technology one small step at a time when you can jump a few decades at once. :cool:

[CharBroiled20s]

I agree, these protocols have quite a bit of overhead. Too bad it's so difficult to totally overhaul all these protocols. Make there as few protocols as possible that work great. Only real difference would be the physical medium the protocol goes over.

too correct, sir!

If somehow they increased the throughput to 100gb/s the protocol overhead would be much less of an issue.

I wonder what kind of performance you would see if fiber was used as the interconnect for the video card.. or the front side bus.. Imagine a hybrid fiber/copper motherboard.... now that's startrek :P

[safasule]

Very smart move by Jobs giving this to Intel so it can become a standard. Were Apple to go it alone, we'd have another Firewire and MDP on out hands.

You said it, boy this looks too good to be true! The future rocks...

[CrackedButter]

Oh - there's huge value in it for Apple stock holders.

Apple will find a way to manipulate this technology to make it more profitable for them and more expensive for us - like using mini display port and it's DL-DVI adaptor that doesn't work.

Dude I think you better check your tin foil hat for holes, you know for just in case.

[CharBroiled20s]

What's really funny (or sad) is all those pro-Microsoft, anti-Apple people talking about how Apple just wants to change things, how USB 2.0 is good enough, how FireWire "never catched on" (yeah right).

If nobody pushed forward we'd still be using floppy drives, parallel and serial ports, CGA graphics, etc. ;)

USB 3.0 was just a little push forward, relatively speaking. But this LightPeak thing seems like the next big step.

Why push technology one small step at a time when you can jump a few decades at once. :cool:

UMMM..... What?

I've never heard anyone say they're happy about settling with old tech. Who are you quoting exactly?

Everyone wants more speed... It's why computer technology evolves every couple months. Progress happens in fits and starts but I've never heard anyone say I want my CPU slower or I'm happy with 512mb of RAM and a parallel cable.

I'm pro Microsoft and pro Apple... Competition breeds progress and no matter which side of the fence you sit on EVERYONE wants more, better, faster.

Also, Firewire didn't exactly catch on like USB. This was partly due to the licensing fees Apple was charging... Firewire was and still is faster than USB AND has a more rugged connector but the battle between these 2 similar transport protocols was decidedly won by USB....

Cheaper prices... That's what the masses want. Every single computer has a USB port, the same can not be said for FireWire... Heck, apple switched the iPods off FireWire generations ago.

[xlii]

This is years away. While the technology works the human element just isn't there. Getting all the CEO egos to adopt this and then put out the computers and the peripherals at roughly the same time just isn't going to happen. Look h ow long the Blu Ray vs HD took. Look at the wireless spec 801.11n... how many years in draft?

[jicon]

This is quite amazing: a true leap of connectivity.

Seems things are changing again. If this is used in a tablet arriving in only a few months, I'd be surprised. It would make sense, but seems expensive at this time for a tablet looking to be cheaper than Macbooks already slated to reduce in price.



Bet you would have been impressed if Ballmer invented it.
So would I, actually.

The reason anything is expensive is because it is made with rare materials or rare manufacturing technique. If this becomes a standard connector, cables will be cheap as dirt and everyone will make them... most likely.

No genius... I wouldn't have been impressed if Ballmer (Incidentally, not an electrical engineer) invented it.

There are compromises here. The video from the Intel lab showed a telecom switch, which if I recall, the 1Gbps switches used to cost around $40,000 ten years ago, back when I was installing fiber.

The problem with being light travel only, means expensive cabling to ensure the light is refracted along the length of the cable properly... watching the connector ends to ensure it is cut correctly, and unlike CAT5, you won't be seeing easy to install connectors with length of cable.

Because light is carried along the path, any accessory on the other end will need to be powered externally (IE, the plethora of wires under your desk will grow, or stay the same) IF copper was added to the wire/connector, expect price of cabling to remain high.

I'd expect this advancement as a port for use to replace FW800, display or network connectivity only. Essentially a highspeed interconnect between powered devices. Sounds eerily like fiberchannel networking, which hasn't exactly taken off on the desktop/portable scale due to cost.

[Jamo12]

I say that we will only need 2 kinds of cables in the future. One port like the LP that has wicked fast data transfers and can be used with almost anything. Use this for hard drives, display connectors and the like.

We also need something USB like where as the data isn't as fast but it has power going through it. We would use keyboards, mice, and other usb things that need power.

If they could stick the wires for power into the LP without hindering it much then That wold be all that we will ever need (at least for the next few decades)

[CharBroiled20s]

There's nothing wrong with sticking a pair of copper wires alongside the fibre optic cables. DC charging cables can be very long without losing much power, and of course will not significantly affect the cost of the cables.

Dude, WHAT! we use AC power because DC loses soooooooo much juice over distance...

I had to put the inverter for my wind generator in the attic because I was losing too much juice with it in the basement.

There aren't gonna be copper leads running with the fiber it's not economical. The cables would be immensely expensive and face it, they're not using this to supplement USB... this is inevitably for use from powered device to powered device (like a monitor or external HDD or a network interface for your computer..) This will most likely connect devices that have their own power supplies...

[Macinposh]

This is years away.


According to intel it will be on production machines 2010.
It is up to vedors if they want to jump on the bandwagon at that time.
Some will,some wont.
Hopefully apple is with the early adopters.

[subsonix]

Apple will find a way to manipulate this technology to make it more profitable for them and more expensive for us - like using mini display port and it's DL-DVI adaptor that doesn't work.

The mini display port has a legitimate use in small portable devices.

[toke lahti]

... watching the connector ends to ensure it is cut correctly, and unlike CAT5, you won't be seeing easy to install connectors with length of cable.

Because light is carried along the path, any accessory on the other end will need to be powered externally (IE, the plethora of wires under your desk will grow, or stay the same) IF copper was added to the wire/connector, expect price of cabling to remain high.

I'd expect this advancement as a port for use to replace FW800, display or network connectivity only. Essentially a highspeed interconnect between powered devices. Sounds eerily like fiberchannel networking, which hasn't exactly taken off on the desktop/portable scale due to cost.
I don't see any problem with using factory made cables. Does still somebody connect rj45 connectors to their cables by themselves?

It has been said in this thread quite many times that LP will include copper for power. And having pair of copper in the cable won't raise the cost notably.

This might be the first time we get low price optical connecion since toslink.
This time it's only 7000 times faster.
Low price of course only if it gets mass adopted...

[Rocketman]

According to intel it will be on production machines 2010.
It is up to vendors if they want to jump on the bandwagon at that time.
Some will,some wont.
Hopefully apple is with the early adopters.

This is an Apple effort, implemented by Intel. It should be in the Fall 2010 iteration of MacPro updates. So about a year from now. It should propagate to portable hardware offerings within about a year after that. Presumably handtop devices will also selectively see it, probably as the primary docking option in conjunction with a power channel.

A couple of recent stories that associates with this.

There is a new much larger packet protocol being defined that works on high bandwidth backbones.

100gigabit switching schemes are being deployed now to deal with very high 10gb ethernet services.

The 100m (328 foot) range of this cabling scheme suits itself to cable TV companies using telephone poles and underground utility schemes.

Video protocols:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_video
720p 1280x720 158 Mbps (HD)
1080i 1440x1080 266 Mbps (HD)
2160p 3840x2160 1424 Mbps (quad HD)
4K 4096x2160 1424 Mbps (Theatrical)

Rocketman

[hmmfe]

For 1000 base-T ethernet (gigabit ethernet) the protocol overhead is nearly half the theoretical maximum (1gb/s) so you only end up transferring files at around 500mb/s ... still not shabby.


I'm not sure what protocol overhead you are calculating, as it relates to Ethernet, but typically this refers to the Ethernet plus TCP/IP overhead (and does not include any additional overhead as part of the application layer). If this is the case, your calculation is way off. You can safely assume around 6-8% overhead but it can vary depending on some optional fields in the headers. If we are talking gigabit ethernet and you use jumbo frames then the overhead is about 1%.

That being said, your point that theoretical throughput vs. real-world throughput is valid. To me the big question mark is the switching (they called it a router) technology they use and what if any scheduling they'll do do arbitrate which ports get what percentage of the available bandwidth.

[valvehead]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUBRjiVhJTs

That looks promising. I'm curious as to how well it would hold up to repeated, long-term bending/unbending from portable use.

[seashellz]

Brilliant - Now Apple can sell LP-USB, LP-FW, LP-DVI, LP-VGA, LP-DLDVI adaptors at £20 -> £70 each to rip us all off a little bit more.
--
jeeze people complained when they had to give up their IBM Selectric typewriters for a monitor KB and mouse
This is far closer than we think-copper is at its limit and will very soon become VERY expensive; China is hoarding all it can get
This IS the future standard why? FAST.
and like Classic, Mac will eventually drop support for the rest of the mess;
Like anything else this will be ubiquitous and the costs will drop quickly. Like any new product, say, BR players, for instance-now under $100, [although based on VERY poor sales- DVD Q1,2, 2009: $5 billion vs $410 million BR-we may see the end of its use for movies soon-and its likely to get worse in this economy-and with a billion still breathing/eating DVD players out there- hell-even DDL/VOD sales have left BR in the dust: closing in on $1 billion in sales*]
On a pie chart, BR has roughly 4% sales vs 11% DDL/VOD vs 85% DVD; Possible clue: Why still no BR announcement from the coming major iMac refresh, As a storage medium? Again, why has Apple not yet taken the byte? The DDL/VOD numbers hint at CLOUD.
*www.videobusiness.com Marketing
And from an interview with some Intel engineers-this move may make Windows creak and strain to the point of being seen as an 'irrelevant' relic of the 20th century-one reason why Intel became fast friends with APPLE-maybe even on their own went a' courting Steve.
Yes I know im talking old SW vs new HW-which was Intel's whole point

[Stephen123]

Adaptors will presumably be much more expensive. Also Hubs will be strange and complex because of all the protocols. If an 8 port hub has to also be an 8 port ethernet switch, it'll be a lot more expensive than a USB hub.

If they're aiming to have the attraction of being the ultimate cable over a long period, I think they need to have a 3.5mm connector for mobile devices.

Also, they're going to have trouble with the fact that EU just standardized on Micro USB for charging mobile devices (by law).

[hmmfe]

There are compromises here. The video from the Intel lab showed a telecom switch, which if I recall, the 1Gbps switches used to cost around $40,000 ten years ago, back when I was installing fiber.

Not exactly sure what you mean by a telecom switch (could mean many things) but gigabit ethernet back in 1999 was virtually brand new. A 24-port 1000-SX switch today costs around $10,000. Either way, what does this have to do with Light Peak? Light Peak uses different optics and components and is suppose to be significantly cheaper than say OC-192 optics often used in telecom.

watching the connector ends to ensure it is cut correctly, and unlike CAT5, you won't be seeing easy to install connectors with length of cable.

Since the new interface would be used for display, USB/Firewire replacement, etc. When did you ever terminate you own VGA cable or Firewire cable? I'd agree about networking, but most people buy factory terminated patch cables as they are much more reliable and durable.

Sounds eerily like fiberchannel networking, which hasn't exactly taken off on the desktop/portable scale due to cost.

Seriously? Fibre Channel for desktop use? Do you understand the purpose of Fibre Channel? Kinda like saying an Airbus A380 hasn't taken off for commuting 15 miles to work due to cost. Can that really be considered a criticism?

[JohnDoe98]

I say that we will only need 2 kinds of cables in the future. One port like the LP that has wicked fast data transfers and can be used with almost anything. Use this for hard drives, display connectors and the like.

We also need something USB like where as the data isn't as fast but it has power going through it. We would use keyboards, mice, and other usb things that need power.

If they could stick the wires for power into the LP without hindering it much then That wold be all that we will ever need (at least for the next few decades)

The LP cables will have power wires in them to power devices, as for mice and keyboards, those will be wireless via bluetooth. So, the only two kinds of cables we will need will be this one and your basic power cable for the computer. But Intel is working on that too so soon we won't need to be physically connected to a power source. Google Intel Wireless Power or just visit the WiTricity webpage.

[lostngone]

Copper will not catch up. The only electrical technology that is known about that has a hope of beating optical is carbon nanotubes, and that is a long way off. A single copper cable simply cannot contain such high frequency signals over any useful distance without a huge input of power, which will most likely lead to the copper melting. Optical systems do not have this problem.

Huh? as far as 10Gb is concerned copper has exceeded that transfer speed years ago. Yes fiber has advantages but in this case you could easily handle the throughput of Light Peak with copper.
What do you consider "any useful distance" If we are talking about Desktop computing I would say ~150 feet would be more then adequate.
Also to say Optical transport does not have any attenuation problems is flat out wrong.

[TheMechanic]

Choosing automatic syncing puts a local copy on your desktop. I just put symbolic links to it. Does that answer your question?

Yes, thank you!
And when you edit a file on your iDisk and only there, or you add a new file to the iDisk, will the changes be synced back to your local machine?
Sorry, maybe I should just try it out myself with the mobileme trail...

[crackpip]

Dude, WHAT! we use AC power because DC loses soooooooo much juice over distance...

There's nothing special about AC in terms of power loss during transmission. What was special about AC was the ease of transforming between low and high voltage. That was more than 100 years ago; the technology has been around for more than 50 years to efficiently step-up and step-down DC voltage. You can now transmit DC electricity just as far with less power loss.

crackpip

[Heijtink]

This all great and all. But I'm not thrilled until we see these speeds wirelessly. I mean I would be ready to carve out my wall so I can use these wires to run through my home, if it wasn't such a hassle to do that. The only arena that I am interested in having such a speeds is between two computers and a computer and my tv. So I can finally boot off the network. Have video's and music stream without a problem etc. I hate wires. Don't give me reasons why I should have them. Give me more reasons why I shouldn't have them. 802.11n was a good reason. But that still isn't good enough.

[mgilks]

Looks a bit Sci-Fi (ish)... But if it's as good as it seems to be, I can't wait to see it in the MBP!

[toke lahti]

and like Classic, Mac will eventually drop support for the rest of the mess;
Like anything else this will be ubiquitous and the costs will drop quickly. Like any new product, say, BR players, for instance-now under $100, [although based on VERY poor sales- DVD Q1,2, 2009: $5 billion vs $410 million BR-we may see the end of its use for movies soon-and its likely to get worse in this economy-and with a billion still breathing/eating DVD players out there- hell-even DDL/VOD sales have left BR in the dust: closing in on $1 billion in sales*]
On a pie chart, BR has roughly 4% sales vs 11% DDL/VOD vs 85% DVD; Possible clue: Why still no BR announcement from the coming major iMac refresh, As a storage medium? Again, why has Apple not yet taken the byte? The DDL/VOD numbers hint at CLOUD.
*www.videobusiness.com Marketing
I believe that BD will be success after all the hurt that was in the bag.
So do some others:
http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6698792.html?desc=topstory
If you look at this:
http://www.videobusiness.com/info/CA6673480.html
you can see that "digital" increased 21%, BD rentals +62% & BD sales +91%.
It's all about price for mainstream consumers. When BD isn't notably more expensive than dvd, people prefer higher quality.
Next year everybody will be buying BDs, while broadband won't grow much to increase "digital". It is still faster to grab a player from nearest store than dig fiber all the way to home. And a lot cheaper.

Btw, what support Apple has dropped in recent years after floppy disk? ADC?

[toke lahti]

Huh? as far as 10Gb is concerned copper has exceeded that transfer speed years ago. Yes fiber has advantages but in this case you could easily handle the throughput of Light Peak with copper.
Advantage of LP is that it has roadmap for 100Gb. That will be very hard for more then adequate distance with copper.
I know nothing about LP's specs, but I'll also guess that it transports DP-micropackets better than ethernet...

[mdriftmeyer]

Leave it to Intel to take credit for someone else's technology advancement.

[mdriftmeyer]

Advantage of LP is that it has roadmap for 100Gb. That will be very hard for more then adequate distance with copper.
I know nothing about LP's specs, but I'll also guess that it transports DP-micropackets better than ethernet...

Nevermind the fact of the sheer physical properties advantages inherent in Fiber versus Copper.

This technology scales.

[layte]

Leave it to Intel to take credit for someone else's technology advancement.

From reading the articles, that is hardly a fair assessment of the situation (although to be expected on MR). Apple had a specification, Intel had the technical and engineering prowess to hammer out a physical product from that.

[intel]

I've always said... why not have monitors like usb peripherals!
You want another monitor, just plug it in. As long as you have another port, you can ad another monitor. By the looks of things, the usb port can be adapted to suit light peak connector as well. So it's not like there will be too much adaptation to what the external of a laptop or computer will look like.... only that there will be no dvi,hdmi,serial,firewire. Love it, really love it.

[Imhotep397]

Sounds like the next generation of Firewire disguised , which kind of sucks in terms of Apple really not getting sufficient credit. If they can get some credit and we can stop ignoring the fact that USB sucks because the "New Firewire" will become the standard I'm all for it.

[waloshin]

Heard it transfers at 10GB/s. At the moment that's a BluRay movie in 30 Seconds. And plans for it to increase to 100GB/s within the next 10 years. :)

Also notable is that it can be used in Exchanges to speed up internet connections and phone calls/SMS... :cool:

Yes, but can your harddrive write that fast?

[illegallydead]

Bold and smart move by Apple. They already have a stake in the music distribution business and are gaining control of that market.

Now is Apples move into the HD video market. Light Peak is one step to assist the elimination of Blu-ray. Video on disc media is so 1980's. We have moved away from /retrieve disc from storage case/eject/place disc on tray/load/press play. Media is much more convenient at your finger tip when you just point and click. Who will need Netflix or even Wal-mart if DRM free high quality media can be quickly downloaded from Apple via Light Peak?

The future is fiber and wireless. Light Peak is part of the Apple strategic plan to dominate everything that is not wireless. Other legacy connectors are dying. Hulu variants are replacing cable tv, so give me Light Peak to finally kill it off. Cellphone replaced plain old telephone lines so give me Light Peak to kill of the legacy ISP and telecommunication over copper. HDMI has already saturated the market and will take a while to die. However, when video/audio/storage medium/internet/telecommunication/all forms of media have adapted Light Peak, Apple will have made a bundle from just the licensing portion of its use alone. DRM shall also play a role in this. How? We shall have to wait and see.

USB is here to stay. It will remain the copper connection of choice for wired keyboards, mice and flash drives. Copper will not die it will just not be used for everything.

You must not have read the article. LP has a distance maximum. It is meant for local (in-house) connections. Telecoms are already using fibre-optic connections and have been for years (due to scalablity: same fibre can trasmit as much as the back-end tech can deliver it. You WILL NOT be getting LP from your telecom. Not to mention servers have been and always will be the bottleneck. No matter how fast you hook-up, joe-shmoes website cannot push info down the pipe to millions of people that fast.

Dude, WHAT! we use AC power because DC loses soooooooo much juice over distance...

I had to put the inverter for my wind generator in the attic because I was losing too much juice with it in the basement.

There aren't gonna be copper leads running with the fiber it's not economical. The cables would be immensely expensive and face it, they're not using this to supplement USB... this is inevitably for use from powered device to powered device (like a monitor or external HDD or a network interface for your computer..) This will most likely connect devices that have their own power supplies...

Dude, what? :rolleyes: You realize that the US uses DC for most of it's long-distance transmission lines, right? I imagine your turbine doesn't kick out high enough voltages or something; DC transmission done right is very very good for very long distances. We use AC power because it was marketed better way way back in the day.

Anyway, back on topic, if this is to take off, I imagine that they will throw a copper pair in there for power needs. Constraining it to powered devices would only hinder its take-off as a do-all-end-all cable. Why exactly is it (copper) not economical? Copper is dirt cheap (for now, granted), glass for the fibre is relatively dirt cheap. There shouldn't be any reason why running the two together would be a problem. One is infrared optical, one is DC electrical. They should have no reason to interfere with one another.

[illegallydead]

Sounds like the next generation of Firewire disguised , which kind of sucks in terms of Apple really not getting sufficient credit. If they can get some credit and we can stop ignoring the fact that USB sucks because the "New Firewire" will become the standard I'm all for it.

Please realize that your misguided "apple not really getting sufficient credit" idea is a good thing. Apple "getting credit" = royalties. Royalties = more money = more likely to be like FireWire: great and all, but will never reach USB levels of adoption.

[Imhotep397]

...The big question is why is Intel promoting USB 3.0 if they have Light Peak coming around the corner (2010). And why did Apple (who has never been afraid to develop a new standard) have Intel develop it?

Somehow this story doesn’t add up.

It adds up. Apple has been trying to do this with the firewire standard for quite a few years...probably since the beginning of firewire. You can see the early fruits with Apple's early generation iPods that had "Combo" connectors that allowed you to plug iPods into USB or firewire interfaces and ADI. The problem for Apple has been that because Intel flatly refused to integrate Firewire or ADI into their mainboard specs every year they would not become a standard which meant that costs and adoption would never get to point that was acceptable and Apple would have to have another set of legacy technologies that would only be supported internally. Light Peak represents a way for Apple to backdoor legacy technologies into a standard that will be part of every Intel mainboard/chipset that's released after 2010. USB has always been inferior to firewire in terms of sustained throughput and just data transfer speed in general, but because Intel is the big dog they just muscled the standard through. From my perspective I see USB 3 really representing them supporting both the technology that's already out there and their employees that have been working on USB for several years. Intel also wants to have the option to back out because they don't totally own the standard.

[Warbrain]

I'll say this...

I cannot wait to see it and try it out myself. It'll be great.

[bigwig]

I'd love for this to replace the misbegotten hack that is HDMI. You can't get a reliable connection longer than about 10 feet which really constrains how you design a room for video. With LP the problem goes away.

I don't see LP replacing cat5/6 in home or small/medium business networking applications. They are relatively inexpensive and scale up to 10Gb Ethernet. That's plenty of bandwidth, you'd need a big server like an SGI Altix and hundreds of clients to get anywhere near saturating it. That's not likely in a home or small/medium sized business.

[kironin]

Well, if this comes out in 2010, it'll make SATA3.0/eSATA/USB3/FW3200 all redundant before they get mainstream.

It might get a tad confusing if every connector on the computer has the same shape.

shapes are already confusing.

Just color code.

[Neotyguy40]

I have a question:

Couldn't they put optical semiconductors into processors? That would reduce the heat and allow many processors to go beyond the 4.0 GHz limit without turning it into molten metal.

I mean, just until they can figure a cheap way to make Diamond Semiconductors (http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/81ghz-diamond-semiconductor-created-20030827/).

[Jamo12]

shapes are already confusing.

Just color code.

What about color blind people? ;)

[wackymacky]

Dude, WHAT! we use AC power because DC loses soooooooo much juice over distance...

I had to put the inverter for my wind generator in the attic because I was losing too much juice with it in the basement.

There aren't gonna be copper leads running with the fiber it's not economical. The cables would be immensely expensive and face it, they're not using this to supplement USB... this is inevitably for use from powered device to powered device (like a monitor or external HDD or a network interface for your computer..) This will most likely connect devices that have their own power supplies...


Sure but for a metre or two ie for a mouse or keyboard cable it might make sence.

(Though I can't see USB completely disappearing as it works well with a lot of non expensive peripheral devices.)

[wackymacky]

What about color blind people? ;)

They should pass a law that all cables should have braille on them.

It would help when you're reaching behind somethong like your Hi-F!.

[wackymacky]

You must not have read the article. LP has a distance maximum. It is meant for local (in-house) connections. Telecoms are already using fibre-optic connections and have been for years (due to scalablity: same fibre can trasmit as much as the back-end tech can deliver it. You WILL NOT be getting LP from your telecom. Not to mention servers have been and always will be the bottleneck. No matter how fast you hook-up, joe-shmoes website cannot push info down the pipe to millions of people that fast.



Dude, what? :rolleyes: You realize that the US uses DC for most of it's long-distance transmission lines, right? I imagine your turbine doesn't kick out high enough voltages or something; DC transmission done right is very very good for very long distances. We use AC power because it was marketed better way way back in the day.

Anyway, back on topic, if this is to take off, I imagine that they will throw a copper pair in there for power needs. Constraining it to powered devices would only hinder its take-off as a do-all-end-all cable. Why exactly is it (copper) not economical? Copper is dirt cheap (for now, granted), glass for the fibre is relatively dirt cheap. There shouldn't be any reason why running the two together would be a problem. One is infrared optical, one is DC electrical. They should have no reason to interfere with one another.


What, what?

AC domenated becasue it was at the time the only cost effective way to up the voltages.

It wasnt untill the late '40s that the arc valves were reliable enough for the voltages required for DC long distance trasnmission,

[CrackedButter]

They should pass a law that all cables should have braille on them.

Colour blind people don't need braille. You just use a set of colours that fit within every bodies ability to see colours, there are 3 or 4 types of colour blindness as well.

Or go greyscale basically.

[savar]

What about color blind people? ;)

What are you guys talking about? The connectors are all compatible. It doesn't need color coding.

[some1uDNTknow]

this is great! now we just need 1 TB Flash Drives with this thing... :P

[EdRed]

At face value, it sounds more like a reincarnated ADC (Apple Display Connector) than a replacement for USB.

It will be used in part for the same (as they were showing in the demo) but ADC was only for displays. This new technology could be used to connect anything not just displays.

The big question is why is Intel promoting USB 3.0 if they have Light Peak coming around the corner (2010).

Who knows. Maybe they don't want to put all their eggs in the same basket.

And why did Apple (who has never been afraid to develop a new standard) have Intel develop it?

Somehow this story doesn’t add up.

Why not? Intel is one of the biggest players in this industry with enough influence to push this kind of thing. With them behind this it only makes it easier for Apple to get what they want.

[KingYaba]

This is pretty cool.

[harodude]

Edit:(

[DubOverdose]

Sounds nice.

It would still need at least two copper wires to supply power to devices without their own power plugs. Only way to get power through optical would be to have little solar cells on the end. :)
Well, they are probably using photodiodes already for the detection, which generate a current based on the incident light. The power will be too low though I'm sure.

[gohanmzt]

One Cable To Rule Them All...


Sorry, I couldn't resist.

[pdjudd]

Well, they are probably using photodiodes already for the detection, which generate a current based on the incident light. The power will be too low though I'm sure.

They can’t rely on that, they are probably going to use copper for power.

[Vidd]

I think I'll make my next desktop purchase when this comes out. :)

I remember finally replacing my first computer when someone bought me a printer and I couldn't use it since it only used USB. I thought it was amazing when a large, ugly port with those little screw caps was replaced by something so sleek and easy to use.
Now there's going to be a port that can potentially replace all others? Awesome.

[hottyson]

You must not have read the article. LP has a distance maximum. It is meant for local (in-house) connections.
I read the article. I was talking for local in house connection. Light Peak would make live streaming of HD possible. Software DRM intertwined in the streaming of video (encryption) is my prediction for Apple future movie rental buisness. A hiccup free rental of a motion picture is not currently possible at affordable cable modem speeds.

DRM in a cable such as HDMI is a joke. It will surely die as it does not stop pirating of any movie what so ever.

[Pocket lint]

I read the article. I was talking for local in house connection. Light Peak would make live streaming of HD possible. Software DRM intertwined streaming video is my prediction for Apple future movie rental buisness. A hiccup free rental of a motion picture is not currently possible at affordable cable modem speeds.

As illegally dead said, you don't get the article. "local in house" does not mean you get a faster internet connection. It's local.

[Edit: Honk at me when you get an internet connection in excess of 1000Mb/sec./1Gb/sec Honk twice, if you can get an internet connection six times that - even DL only - in the near future in a town near you]


DRM in a cable such as HDMI is a joke. It will surely die as it does not stop pirating of any movie what so ever.

What makes you think there won't be any DRM incorporated into the protocol of LP?

[bigwig]

Why would anybody be confused by all the connectors looking the same? "Plug it in, it just works!" Much better than USB, FW400, FW800, DVI, HDMI, eSATA, SPDIF, etc.

[Pocket lint]

Why would anybody be confused by all the connectors looking the same? "Plug it in, it just works!" Much better than USB, FW400, FW800, DVI, HDMI, eSATA, SPDIF, etc.

Nothing to be confused about. However, the dongles will kill me, utterly negating most of the benefits for me as an end-user.

[gr8tfly]

Well, they are probably using photodiodes already for the detection, which generate a current based on the incident light. The power will be too low though I'm sure.

Photodiodes don't generate current - they control it.

[pdjudd]

Nothing to be confused about. However, the dongles will kill me, utterly negating most of the benefits for me as an end-user.

Unfortunately, people are unwilling to get rid of legacy devices, in many cases, they have many. You can keep legacy ports easier on desktops, but thats much harder on laptops. Thats why you have dongles - many times you cannot get a single wire to do the job and keeping legacy ports around only encourages their continued use by device makers.

[arkmannj]

Is this Star Trek?

It's cool, but I didn't hear anything about GigaQuads in the presentations :p

[Pocket lint]

Unfortunately, people are unwilling to get rid of legacy devices, in many cases, they have many. You can keep legacy ports easier on desktops, but thats much harder on laptops. Thats why you have dongles - many times you cannot get a single wire to do the job and keeping legacy ports around only encourages their continued use by device makers.

Again, that just means I won't be buying a computer without "legacy" ports. The thing is, most of my equipment cost way more than a computer. If I cannot connect my equipment I need to make my living, I'll simply buy another computer.
It's not about a lack of "willingness" to switch, it's about getting the job done. If I don't have the connectivity I can't make money.

Only lowest common denominator consumers won't have this problem. To them, as long as they can connect their iPhone/iPod, they couldn't care less.
It doesn't matter either that they for a while cannot connect their stuff, they'll wait, and in the meantime use a dongle (if so available).

Of course, that's all fine and well, but I'm not going to go out and buy consumer grade tools to do my job, simply because Apple et al tries to force my hand. That will loose me my job.

[silentnite]

Hey! not so fast, slow down. I'm still waiting for USB 3.0 :D

[arkmannj]

Hey! not so fast, slow down. I'm still waiting for USB 3.0 :D

it's okay you'll be able to get an over priced LP to USB3 converter cable ;-) from Monster or Belkin

[Pocket lint]

it's okay you'll be able to get an over priced LP to USB3 converter cable ;-) from Monster or Belkin

Sweet :D

Including a fancy metallic box, 2x3 inches, to house the optical-to-coaxial hardware plus an optional wallwart to add 5 volt power to it. It's damn pure joy, I tells ya.

[ProwlingTiger]

This sounds like an awesome option. Hopefully Apple and Intel are already talking with manufacturers about using this connection type in the future. Preferably the relatively soon future...before USB3 plagues the market.

[arkmannj]

Sweet :D

Including a fancy metallic box, 2x3 inches, to house the optical-to-coaxial hardware plus an optional wallwart to add 5 volt power to it. It's damn pure joy, I tells ya.

I just hope the fancy metallic box has awesome blinking lights !

[W1LLk]

It's been said before, and I'll say it again. Faster cables are nothing without faster storage devices. The transfer speeds of this cable even exceed the read/write speeds of the Holographic disc drives in development. The only thing I've heard of that comes anywhere close is that electron stack solid state drive in development at Leeds. :apple:

[Pocket lint]

I just hope the fancy metallic box has awesome blinking lights !

It propably will, and an inbuilt li-ion to "save" weight and to give power to the bus. One of the diodes also works as a flashlight, which is one of the selling points to the masses. It will also help you "reduce clutter", is another.

[NT1440]

Wow, thats incredibly brilliant by apple. They both leapfrog USB, and made sure intel did it. With intels majority of the processor market, they have a MASSIVE amount of pull when it comes to new standards. As long as all companies are allowed to use and implement this, LP IS the future of connectivity.

I can't wait to see how this goes.

[arkmannj]

It propably will, and an inbuilt li-ion to "save" weight and to give power to the bus. One of the diodes also works as a flashlight, which is one of the selling points to the masses. It will also help you "reduce clutter", is another.

but will it power a desktop bobble-head toy, or a lightsabre or a nurf dart gun ? theses are pressing questions I must know

[Thex1138]

It's the Jesus Port for connectivity... for the Jesus Phone... 2010/2011.

[Pocket lint]

but will it power a desktop bobble-head toy, or a lightsabre or a nurf dart gun ? theses are pressing questions I must know


Yes. The integrated Li-Ion battery (non-swappable, of course) will power a desktop bobble-head toy for almost an hour. This is tested by using the standardized (by Apple only, of course) Bobble-head toy-test*.


[Nurf-guns are, unfortunately, not supported. The Nurf-gun association have stated that they have no intention of upgrading their Nurf-sockets to yet another standard. In a press realase, Michael Molloki, CEO of Nurfs International, stated that instead of adapting this Apple-socket, they will develop their own.]


*Times will vary according to size of bobble head. The test was done with pauses of up to fiften minutes (each) and on a single charge.

[wizard]

It's been said before, and I'll say it again. Faster cables are nothing without faster storage devices. The transfer speeds of this cable even exceed the read/write speeds of the Holographic disc drives in development. The only thing I've heard of that comes anywhere close is that electron stack solid state drive in development at Leeds. :apple:

All you really need is storage faster than SATA to justify the new port. Focusing on Light Peaks top data rate is just a distraction all you need to do is to beat what is currently the fastest transfer method by a significant amount.

Since the building of storage device running beyound 600MB/s is already possible, LP is justified. That is with todays flash, some of the new tech is much faster than flash for reads. In any event fAst storage systems don't imply fast parts, do your recalls in parallel and you easily can saturate SATA.

The other side of this is that you don't build new standard interfaces for today, you build them for what you think the needs of tomorrow are. Interesting here is the intention to eventually get to 100Gbs. That is all about thinking ahead.


Dave

[Erasmus]

Huh? as far as 10Gb is concerned copper has exceeded that transfer speed years ago. Yes fiber has advantages but in this case you could easily handle the throughput of Light Peak with copper.
What do you consider "any useful distance" If we are talking about Desktop computing I would say ~150 feet would be more then adequate.
Also to say Optical transport does not have any attenuation problems is flat out wrong.

Sigh. I have personally sent 160 Gbit/s of data down a SINGLE 100 KILOMETRE length of cheap optical cable. At a SINGLE wavelength. And been able to decode all that information ERROR-FREE. I don't know how much that means to you, but it's quite simple. Fibre optic cables can carry an astonishing amount of data, over incredible distances, with very little loss of power. Yes, the equipment to do that cost at least hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, but it is simply impossible to do that using electrical signals through copper.

Yes, it is possible to transfer 10 Gbit/s via a single copper wire, but the power required is huge. So nobody does it. They all use 8, 16, 32, etc. copper wires to share the load, and keep the clock speeds down. Light Peak can do this over a single optical cable, with a tiny fraction of the power that would be required by an electrical connection. It also has the capability of transferring far more data than in the demo.

Finally, if a single optical cable using Intel's current miniaturised multiplexing and demultiplexing technology can carry 10 Gbit/s, with even more miniaturisation, there's nothing wrong with throwing 4, 8, 16 etc. fibre optic cables together for even more speed.



** End Rant**

I reckon it would be pretty sweet if Intel linked a simplified USB 2 or maybe even USB 3 connector to the two in/out optical fibres of Light Peak to make a truly universal connection. Come to think of it, even USB 1 would be sufficient. High speed devices use the Light Peak connection, requiring the full laser/photodiode package, where as your slow, mundane devices like mouse and keyboard can connect via the electrical USB interface, requiring nothing more than such devices use at the moment. Who knows, maybe they'll be able to modify the existing USB socket design with 2 or 4 fibre optic cables, and merge the two standards completely, ensuring that old devices still work in the new sockets?

Now wouldn't that be cool?

[Erasmus]

Since the building of storage device running beyound 600MB/s is already possible, LP is justified. That is with todays flash, some of the new tech is much faster than flash for reads. In any event fAst storage systems don't imply fast parts, do your recalls in parallel and you easily can saturate SATA.

Indeed. If your connection is much faster than your device read/write speed, all you need to do is whack a couple of SSD storage devices together in the one case, and use RAID. Problem solved, storage device can now use as much bandwidth as Light Peak can provide.

Hopefully SSD reliability and cost will soon get to the point where this is feasible.

[mdriftmeyer]

From reading the articles, that is hardly a fair assessment of the situation (although to be expected on MR). Apple had a specification, Intel had the technical and engineering prowess to hammer out a physical product from that.

Apple has the team to do it. They gave it to Intel knowing if Intel pushes it then it will become the standard.

Get it? Firewire got hosed because Intel pushed USB. Never mind the fact that Apple was the first to have USB just work.

Then again Apple did invent SCSI, Firewire and now LP. I guess they understand bus technology, eh?

[thomas040]

<sarcasm>I loved the guy sniffling and coughing in the background, who obviously was dying. Made it such a bliss to watch....</sarcasm>

[lostngone]

Sigh. I have personally sent 160 Gbit/s of data down a SINGLE 100 KILOMETRE length of cheap optical cable. At a SINGLE wavelength.

Well good for you!

We are not talking about 160 Gbit/s or 300 feet. This thread is about a unified optical desktop connection call Light Peak that has a throughput of 10Gb/sec.

No one is arguing that fiber isn't fast, all I was trying to say is at 10Gb/sec can easily be done with copper today and with copper you can still power/charge a device. In this case length isn't that big of a deal because this is a desktop standard. Well I guess if you own a house like Bill Gates you might have a problem with copper.

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Heard it transfers at 10GB/s. At the moment that's a BluRay movie in 30 Seconds. And plans for it to increase to 100GB/s within the next 10 years. :)

Also notable is that it can be used in Exchanges to speed up internet connections and phone calls/SMS... :cool:

Is this Star Trek?

The article clearly says "10Gbps" which is not the same as 10GB/s (by a factor of 8), so I wouldn't get THAT excited. Ethernet on even my old PowerMac from 2001 was 1Gbps. So this is 10x faster than that. 10Gigabit Ethernet already exists and 100 is in development. So no, this isn't Star Trek. USB 3.0 is 4.8Gbps. So this is roughly 2x faster. If that's supposed to make computers "one connector" systems, I hope that's not shared bandwidth across the entire computer or there will be limitations sooner than people think.

[Eidorian]

The article clearly says "10Gbps" which is not the same as 10GB/s (by a factor of 8), so I wouldn't get THAT excited. Ethernet on even my old PowerMac from 2001 was 1Gbps. So this is 10x faster than that. 10Gigabit Ethernet already exists and 100 is in development. So no, this isn't Star Trek. USB 3.0 is 4.8Gbps. So this is roughly 2x faster. If that's supposed to make computers "one connector" systems, I hope that's not shared bandwidth across the entire computer or there will be limitations sooner than people think.10 GB/s is paltry given the bandwidth you can get from other system interconnects.

My comment about Star Trek about more about the application of light and not the bandwidth. ODN (optical data networks) get tossed around a lot. Not to mention the EPS (electro-plasma system). You can boil that down to steam pipes.

[Michael CM1]

Something like this sure would be a nice development. I look at my MacBook Pro and see about 70 different ports and only half of which I use. I really need about 4 to 6 USB ports powered by the bus (well, really 3 but I'm greedy) to plug in numerous hard drives, printers, etc. But to make sure everybody is happy, Apple had to include ExpressCard, FW400, FW800, ethernet, DVI, audio in/out. AAH!! SO MUCH!!!

The more of these that can be converged into a single type of port, the better. I would bet that most people need far more USB ports than anything else, but you'll eventually run across someone with a need for something else.

[Oflife]

http://visionaforethought.wordpress.com/2009/09/27/light-peak-from-apple-intel/

[MacFly123]

Sounds pretty amazing. The only thing better will be wireless speeds that fast one day! :D

Interestingly I recall an Apple patent published not too long ago that talked about an adaptor for iPod and iPhone connectors to be able to connect to new ports! :eek:

I wonder if the tablet will debut this technology! :) I hope so!

[MorphingDragon]

http://visionaforethought.wordpress.com/2009/09/27/light-peak-from-apple-intel/

OFMG the computer just rips off the Abacus. The whole concept of a computer is a copy.

OMG USB2 tips off USB1.

[Jono Hayes]

This is insane. Finaly a one standed plug for every thing is one step closer thanks to intel & apple.

If this becomes real and and a new plug for networking, could I plug screens in to a light peak switch and run them off a computer in a different room? That would rock.

Also that speed would be sick for SAN's and network storge.

I hope that other hardware venders jump on.

[Neodym]

Then again Apple did invent SCSI, Firewire and now LP. I guess they understand bus technology, eh?
SCSI has been invented by "Shugart Associates" back in 1981 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scsi). Apple was only one of several companies (like e.g. Commodore/Amiga, Sun etc.) that adopted this interface in their computers.

[toke lahti]

Firewire got hosed because Intel pushed USB.
That's only half the story. Other half is that Apple made firewire so bag of hurt to the others that it was really easy for intel to win with inferior product.
IMHO, the only thing that can destroy LP's success is royalties...

[layte]

Apple has the team to do it. They gave it to Intel knowing if Intel pushes it then it will become the standard.

Get it? Firewire got hosed because Intel pushed USB. Never mind the fact that Apple was the first to have USB just work.

Then again Apple did invent SCSI, Firewire and now LP. I guess they understand bus technology, eh?

Given what we know about Apple, I hardly think they would 'give it' to Intel if they had the expertise to produce it themselves without assistance. Firewire lost to USB due to the costs that were demanded by the license holders (such as Apple), USB was given away essentially free. As for SCSI, Apple certainly did not invent it, even a quick search would have cleared those 'facts' up for you.

Perhaps Apple have learnt their lesson, and will not make the same demands of LP as they did IEEE1394.

[Furax]

What are you guys talking about? The connectors are all compatible. It doesn't need color coding.

Imagine this, you have 5 devices hooked up to your computer.
The devices are resting on your desk, the computer is hiding under the desk, together with all the cables.
How to find the cable of your keyboard?
Hence it would be nice to know which cable belongs to which device.

Just a simple clarification :)

[sammich]

Imagine this, you have 5 devices hooked up to your computer.
The devices are resting on your desk, the computer is hiding under the desk, together with all the cables.
How to find the cable of your keyboard?
Hence it would be nice to know which cable belongs to which device.

Just a simple clarification :)

You mean the 'cable' is colour coded? Well all you need are permanent markers in different colours.

Say you have 5 USB devices connected...how can you tell the KB from your Mouse or your external HDD?

[kernkraft]

Macrumors, please do something about the 'Sunday off' situation! Perhaps, you could get somebody to write a few little pieces and control the comments.:(

[Furax]

You mean the 'cable' is colour coded? Well all you need are permanent markers in different colours.

Say you have 5 USB devices connected...how can you tell the KB from your Mouse or your external HDD?


That's exactly what I said, to justify why people where discussing the issue ...