In the flurry of commentary about Apple’s release of its long-awaited update of the MacBook Pro, along with talk of new graphics and the FaceTime HD camera is word of a next-generation data transmission technology, known as Thunderbolt. The new port comes with a lighting-bolt icon, providing data speeds of up to 10 Gbps.
The first hint of use for the fast-lane built by Intel and Apple is the FaceTime HD camera, offering 720p video chats and triple the resolution of previous MacBook Pro cameras. However, there could be more uses for Thunderbolt.
Thunderbolt permits high-speed RAID devices to connect to the MacBook. Also, GigaBit ethernet along with more consumer-facing Firewire and USB devices can also attach, according to reports Thursday.
As for that new FaceTime HD camera, the new Thunderbolt technology is reportedly fast enough to download a full-length HD movie in under 30 seconds or slurp down a year’s worth of MP3 recordings in just more than 10 minutes.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
