Comments on: Why Apple is betting on Light Peak with Intel: a love story

By: Berend Schotanus

Berend Schotanus — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:26:08 +0000

Nice article about how complicated industrial relations can be and the dilemmas of innovation. It looks like Apple has ben able to increase its skills in finding the right balance over and over again.

I like the schemas (although difficult to read on an iPhone). It is fascinating to see how different Mac and PC used to be back in the 1990’s and how much more interoperable todays iMac, while still maintaining its innovative edge. Very insightful.

By: Ephilei

Ephilei — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:33:07 +0000

If Light Peak bundles a copper cable for power, and thats a big if, could they then handle enough voltage that periferials wouldn’t need another power supply? Ie, no more dedicate power cords on printers and monitors?

By: TheMacAdvocate

TheMacAdvocate — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:11:48 +0000

Bundling also removes the port clot on the device-end allowing smaller form factor devices to gain the advantages of multiple ports in one connection.

By: drheywood

drheywood — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:28:43 +0000

“In addition, Intel said it’s working on bundling the optical fiber with copper wire so Light Peak can be used to power devices plugged into the PC, he said.”

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-10360047-264.html

By: MikieV

MikieV — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:32:32 +0000

I’m with brett_x

Optical-only cables means the end to bus-powered devices.

USB-stick EyeTV et. al., portable hard-drives, and iPods come to mind as the three types of devices most people are used to being bus-powered.

By: brett_x

brett_x — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:18:57 +0000

I have one question: What about power? Surely they haven’t figured out a way to send power over an optical cable, so there will still have to be copper in the external cables.

By: Ludor

Ludor — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:02:26 +0000

I agree with qka here. Daniel, why do you maintain this… ironic layout? There are often intriguing details in the illustration, but you keep them tiny. It feels like you only want to gives us mere glimpses.

The same goes for my other question. This is your tech/motorcycle/life in SF blog and we are lucky to have you, but you never expand on how you go about your research. I’d be really eager to know, because I love your writing and hate you for excelling on levels of rhethoric I will never soil with my novice Swe-English.

On topic, let’s hope Light Peak fares better than FireWire and ADC.

By: danpoarch

danpoarch — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:46:51 +0000

My hope is that this ships ready to R/W integrate with existing technologies, perhaps creating a market for simple third-party hardware adapters. One LightPeak dongle carrying DVI/Firewire/USB would be enough to silence the critics.

I remember Apple’s marketing that USB and Firewire would remove the tangle of cables from the desktop… Clearly they have… not. It would indeed be nice to have one set of connectors running down the side of a laptop… Though, the numbers of adapters in my jump-kit will triple.

Just give me speed and simplicity and I’ll wrestle with the legacy devices.

By: qka

qka — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:24:09 +0000

Another fascinating article! Thank you!

If I may make a suggestion, would you consider enabling a “click to enlarge” feature of some kind on your timelines and similar illustrations? Yes, some are available on the duplicate article posted on the other site. Yes, many of them were originally introduced in earlier articles of yours.

Thanks!

By: studiodave

studiodave — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:38:41 +0000

I have believed from the first time I ever heard of Optical signal transfers that it would be used for almost everything, It is continuing in that direction and this is the next step. There are uses for light that are still unimagined.