Lite and Light

The rumour mill is working overtime. The latest one has to do with the MacBook Pro line. Supposedly on Thursday we will see an update to that line of computers at Apple. Most of the rumours stem from the fact that orders of new MacBook Pro laptops have been put on hold for a few days (imagine you buy a computer today only to find out three days later that a brand-new model came out). 

As I mentioned in a previous post I have been using one of the new MacBook Airs these past few weeks. This baby is slowly becoming my favourite laptop of all times (and I have owned quite a few of these in the past 20 years). The general feeling is that the entire MacBook Pro line will take on elements of the Air line: whether it is the lack of hard drives or the overall thinness and lightness of these beauties.

But there is another rumour making the rounds. This one has to do with a new high-speed connection technology that might replace USB (1, 2 AND 3), Firewire (400 and 800) and who knows what else. A couple of years ago Intel revealed LightPeak. This technology is supposed to transfer data at 10 Gbps (compared to Firewire 400 at 400 Mbps, Firewire 800 at 800 Mbps, USB 2 at 480 Mbps and USB3 at 3.2 Gbps). Some people are speculating that the new MacBook Pro line might already have LightPeak technology onboard upon its release. Others still are somewhat negative about the technology in general since, contrary to the video appearing below in which we are told that LightPeak will use high-speed optical cable technology, it appears that the current "production" version will still be using copper cable, meaning the tech will be "compromised" for now.

Well, only 72 hours or a little more to go before all these speculations can be laid to rest. Somehow, however, we get a sense that if there is a hardware update this week, it won't just be a "speed-bump" of some sort. Stay tuned.