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All posts tagged "thunderbolt"


Saturday, July 30, 2011

Hands-on with the Speedy Galaxy Tab 10.1 4G from Verizon

Posted by Michael Knutson in "Laptop Thoughts Talk" @ 10:00 AM

"By now, you should be familiar with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. We've done countless hands-ons with the super-svelte Honeycomb slate, and even reviewed it... twice! Now it's back, again, and this time its packing an LTE radio tuned to the frequencies of a little company known as Verizon. Outside of a few tiny cosmetic changes -- the brushed, gray plastic back and the rumored Micro SIM slot up top, nothing else has changed."

It appears, based on preliminary testing with this tablet, that Verizon's 4G is indeed super fast, with an average (repeatable) testing speed of 28+ Mbps downstream, and nearly 8Mbps upstream. Thunderbolt testing produced repeatable results of 44+ Mbps downstream, and 9+ Mbps upstream. Did I mention that this is fast?

If a compelling reason is needed to jettison existing hardware, software and carrier-relationship, this may be one! Now if only those pesky usage caps would disappear, or become more realistic.

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  • Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/28/galaxy-tab-10-1-for-verizon-hands-on-with-the-new-4g-speed-king/


Monday, June 13, 2011

New MacBook Air To Be at the Center of the iCloud Universe

Posted by Michael Knutson in "Apple Talk" @ 03:00 PM

http://gigaom.com/apple/apples-next...w-flagship-mac/

"Apple’s refresh of the MacBook Air last fall did much to improve the fortunes of the company’s ultra-slim notebook. With its next iteration, it could be getting ready to step into the spotlight as the quintessential Mac computer. That update is on the way soon, according to a new report, and I’d be surprised if we didn’t see it arrive right alongside the operating system that seems tailor-made for it: OS X Lion."

According to unconfirmed reports, Apple has ordered at least 400,000 new MacBook Air models, with Intel's new Sandy Bridge processors inside. Sounds like Apple is not content to let a handful of Windows manufacturers offers a MBA-like footprint, far superior capacity and performance, and comparable prices. The new platform will offer Sandy Bridge processors, potentially thunderbolt port(s), upgraded storage capacity, and faster (and larger?) SSDs. Expectations are that the Air will be the platform to highlight the capabilities of the Lion OS. I've also heard other unconfirmed rumors that the new generation will be announced sometime this week. Now we wait and see ...


Friday, February 25, 2011

Evertyhing You Wanted to Know About Thunderbolt

Posted by Hooch Tan in "Digital Home News" @ 01:00 PM

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/24/...-a-closer-look/

Simply put, Thunderbolt's a familiar-looking port, a brand-new chip, and a cord, which allows devices to pipe two data streams simultaneously -- in both directions -- over a single cable at up to 10 gigabits per second to start, primarily using PCI Express x4 for data and DisplayPort for video.

The announcement of Thunderbolt instantly reminded me about the old Firewire vs. USB battle. If you have read the comments or even the press release about Thunderbolt, you have probably seen how people are comparing Thunderbolt to Firewire, and the battle is now between USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt. There are certainly a lot of parallels but I do not know if there is a clear winner, or even if there will be one that dominates the other.

Thunderbolt definitely has more impressive specifications but will that be enough? USB has a far larger install base and is likely to remain much cheaper to implement for various peripherals. Does my mouse really need a 10Gbps lane? Will a Thunderbolt based keyboard cost more than a USB one? I personally suspect that the two will live together, with USB remaining the dominant connection type, with Thunderbolt serving the more demanding uses like external video cards, displays and hard drives. What do you think? Is Thunderbolt the future? Or do we all live in a USB world?


Thursday, February 24, 2011

Intel's Lightpeak Technology is now Dubbed Thunderbolt

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Digital Home News" @ 02:10 PM

http://newsroom.intel.com/community...pc-just-arrived

"Intel Corporation today announced the availability of ThunderboltTM technology, a new high-speed PC connection technology that brings together high-speed data transfer and high-definition (HD) display on to a single cable. Running at 10Gbps, Thunderbolt technology can transfer a full-length HD movie in less than 30 seconds. This Intel-developed technology is coming to market through a technical collaboration with Apple, and is available first on Apple's new line of MacBook Pro laptop computers."

One of the key technologies revealed today in Apple's line of refreshed Macbook Pros is Thunderbolt. I knew it was based on Lightpeak, but when I saw Apple calling it Thunderbolt I was concerned it was going to be an Apple-only term, and we were about to enter into an era where every laptop OEM would have their own term for the technology: "No, no, this isn't Thunderbolt, it's ULTRABOLT!" Turns out that's not the case: Thunderbolt is the new name for Lightpeak, and it will be used by all the OEMs. That's good news. What do you think about the name? It's an unusual name for a technology when compared to the likes of USB 3.0 and SATA; it's more in line with Firewire. Regardless, Thunderbolt is here to stay and offers some compelling features (more on that later).


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