This Tuesday, Intel announced that the developer kits for Thunderbolt will be available from this quarter, which could well result in a larger range of products based on the new technology becoming available very quickly. Intel had first announced Thunderbolt on the 24th of February and only Apple currently offers it in its MacBook Pro range of laptops, which were also launched on the very same day. Apple and Intel collaborated in the development of the new technology. A spokesman from Intel said that the developer kits could help the makers of the devices in accelerating the release of their products in the market.
Thunderbolt is the newest data transfer technology after USB 3.0 and, featuring dual channels and can attain speeds up to 10 gigabits per second while transferring data between external devices and host devices. A full length HD movie can be transferred through the technology in less than 30 seconds and it can also synchronize audio and video of high bandwidth between computers and paired devices in real time. The company is already in collaboration with a number of partners in developing new products in its attempt in building an ecosystem around the Thunderbolt technology. Portable storage products have already been demonstrated by LaCie and Western Digital; however, these companies are not selling those products yet. Support for Thunderbolt has been announced by many more companies including Canon.
Among the companies backing Thunderbolt is Sony, but it hasn’t yet declared the details about its plans to implement Thunderbolt in its laptops. Some companies including Hewlett-Packard which have not adopted Thunderbolt yet have also expressed their interests in the technology. HP currently offers USB 3.0 ports in its high end laptop line for enabling high speed data transfers to external drives and devices.
