Thunderbolt interface rattles placid PC landscape

Rick Merritt, EETimes
3/7/2011 1:07 PM EST

It’s rare that a brand-new technology strikes the maturing computer industry. But that’s what happened a few weeks ago when Apple Inc. announced a family of MacBook Pro notebooks that contain something from Intel called Thunderbolt.

The Apple press release marked the first public use of the name, which hadn’t even appeared in the blogs that had been churning with rumors of an electrical version of the optical Light Peak technology. Intel had been demonstrating a Light Peak prototype since September 2009, but the concept remained little more than a curiosity. Then Thunderbolt emerged full blown in the Apple systems late last month and suddenly became a flashpoint.

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