Intel will make a Light Peak-related announcement on Thursday at 10am Pacific Time (6pm GMT) which is expected to be followed by the unveiling of Apple’s new MacBook Pro line.
There has been much speculation that Light Peak, a new super-fast connection technology from Intel, will make its debut in the new MacBook Pros, possibly under the name ‘Thunderbolt’.
A report from CNET appears to confirm that Apple will launch the new MacBook Pro line after the event, which also falls on the 56th birthday of Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
As well as Light Peak/Thunderbolt technology, the new MacBook Pros will include Intel’s Sandy Bridge processors and according to some reports there could be an SSD option too. They’ll be thinner and lighter, rumour-mongers say, and possibly less expensive than the current generation.
Intel’s Light Peak technology a high-speed replacement for legacy connector technologies, capable of connecting all kinds of peripheral devices to a computer.
It is thought that an initial version of Light Peak will use copper wires though future versions will utilise fibre-optic technology. Intel considers Light Peak to be a complimentary technology to, rather than a rival of, USB. However, it is significantly faster than USB 3.0, theoretically capable of carrying data at 10Gbps.