September 2009 Archives
Light Peak-You heard it here first
By 2FM Moderator on September 27, 2009 11:08 PM
You know the way your computer has a bunch of cables for hard drives, video cameras, music interfaces, external displays-and as always, you can never find the right cable at the right time.
Wouldn't it be great if there was just one universal cable and connector that you used for your phone, your camera, your external hard drive-Well next year, there probably will be !
Forget USB, Firewire, E-SATA and mini DV, "Light Peak" will change the way we plug and un-plug external devices to our laptops and PCs, running speeds of 10GB/s already. Hopes are to max that to 100GB/s within a few years.
It may not mean much to you now, but I guarantee that come this time next year, you'll wonder how you ever managed before!
Oh, and rumour has it that Apple has been pushing Intel to develop the technology, so hold off on buying that new MacBook for a little while yet.
Engadget reported the news first, based on "an extremely reliable source." The site said it reviewed evidence that Apple began talks with Intel in 2007 to develop a new cabling standard with the capacity to handle "massive amounts of data" and replace a variety of existing ports, including USB, FireWire, and DisplayPort.
The article said initial conversation and fleshing out of the Light Peak standard began between Steve Jobs and Intel CEO Paul Otellini. Apple expressed a need for a single port and that optical signaling made the most sense.
Apple is expected to incorporate Light Peak quickly and will use it to replace other legacy ports, much as it did with USB on the original iMac, albeit on a smaller scale. Engadget said that based on what it saw, it expects Apple to roll out the new connector on machines next fall, replacing existing ports for networking, display, and general peripheral use.
Within another year, it expects Apple to begin rolling out a low power version suitable for use in mobile devices such as the iPhone, iPod touch, and a version of the tablet device Apple is expected to bring to market early next year.
Light Peak uses optical rather than electrical signaling to achieve an initial throughput of 10Gbps ("you could transfer a full-length Blu-Ray movie in less than 30 seconds" Intel says). That's similar to high-end optical Fibre Channel or HDMI, and ten times faster than Gigibit Ethernet, more than twenty times faster than USB 2.0, and three times faster than eSATA/SATA 300. Within a decade, Intel expects to achieve speeds of 100 Gbps.
Unlike bulky copper cables (like HDMI), Light Peak achieves its speeds over fibre optic strands the size of a human hair. And unlike existing ports focused on solving a specific problem, such as USB for simple peripherals, DisplayPort for video, SATA for disk drives, and Ethernet for networking, Light Peak can handle multiple protocols over a single cable.
Replacing nearly all of the external ports on existing notebooks or mobile devices with Light Peak would enable a new generation of industrial designs without sacrificing features, as the MacBook Air had to do to achieve its thin outline. It would also enable users to run a single cable to an external display to provide video, audio, touch input, and peripheral expansion that included blazing network performance and high speed disk access.
In an introduction of the new standard, Intel explains on its website, "existing electrical cable technology in mainstream computing devices is approaching practical limits for speed and length, due to electro-magnetic interference (EMI) and other issues. However, optical technology, used extensively in data centers and telecom communications, does not have these limitations since it transmits data using light instead of electricity. Light Peak brings this optical technology to mainstream computing and consumer electronic devices in a cost-effective manner."
Silly Lilly
By 2FM Moderator on September 26, 2009 7:55 PM
After Lily Allen sparked friction between not only thousands of people on the Internet, but also her colleagues in the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), yesterday they met up to try and forge a united front. Now Allen has done a U-turn, stating that disconnecting pirates is too draconian and instead supports FAC calls to slow connections to a crawl.
This vid somewhat sums it all up !
Up until yesterday, Lily was one of the most prominent supporters of a proposed 3 strikes regime to deal with alleged file-sharers - crucially one which would ultimately lead to disconnection from the Internet for those accused. However, this put her at odds with the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) who felt that disconnections are too draconian.
Yesterday, despite saying that she would not attend due to a feared media scrum, Allen attended a meeting in London of around 100 musicians including representatives from FAC in order to find some common ground to move forward.
The artists took a vote and instead of backing up Allen's disconnection calls, went for a more palatable option - maintaining a basic level of Internet access for alleged pirates but throttling their bandwidth so that file-sharing would become impractical.
"Our meeting voted to support a three-strike sanction on those who persistently download illegal files, to consist of a warning letter, a stronger warning letter, and a final sanction of the restriction of the infringers' bandwith to a level which would render file-sharing of media files impractical while leaving basic e-mail and web access functional," said the artists.
Lily Allen closed down her anti-piracy blog yesterday after just a few days in operation, claiming that the abuse she suffered there was too great to continue. Nevertheless, despite the fact she has backed away, the artists said they wished to express support for her anti-piracy campaign.
"We are trying to find a proportionate response to a real problem that is damaging our industry. I hope it will convince the record labels that this is a way of sending a message to file-sharers," said Billy Bragg of FAC.
With Lily's crowd, the Featured Artists Coalition and also UK Music likely to support throttling instead of disconnections, there appears to be a unified voice forming from the artists.
However, while we predict that Internet users will fail to respond to threats (even reduced ones such as throttling), there will be even stronger objections to the stance taken by the artists yesterday from the Big Four labels.
Having ruled out going after individual file-sharers in court, they have put all of their eggs in a single basket which relies on ISPs taking disconnection action against alleged pirates. It is hugely unlikely that they will support these watered-down proposals but we won't have to wait long to find out. According to The Times, the labels will meet this morning and are expected to draft a letter to Lord Mandelson shortly.
Microsoft-WTF ??
By 2FM Moderator on September 25, 2009 9:47 AM
I am a Mac. Not a PC
This is why I am a Mac ! Not a PC
Microsoft-FAIL.
I love you !
By 2FM Moderator on September 16, 2009 1:26 PM
Sometimes, all we need is a little love :)