A Peek at Light Peak Bulges Eyes and May Distract from USB 3.0

Light Peak was demoed at IDF (Intel Developers Forum) recently and it has USB 3.0 supporters up in arms. The demo shows it moving large amounts of files and playing HD video at the same time. The limited amount of press material and obvious implications to USB 3.0 have those looking forward to SuperSpeed USB devices a bit confused. Intel and Apple are allegedly to be in close collaboration on the Light Peak system, which the chip giant says will ship in 2010. While this date may be extremely optimistic, it does overlap with the launch of USB 3.0. Will this chip away at developer confidence and investment in USB 3.0 when Light Peak is apparently at hand? The HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray battle still has companies and consumers reeling and this latecomer may give pause to those who invested the wrong way. Fiber optics do surpass copper in the amount of data that can theoretically be transmitted, but it is not likely to shake USB quickly. The cost of the implementing the technology still puts it out of reach of most applications, for now. While TOSlink and FDDI connectors have seen decent adoption in the world, fiber optic communications have pretty major technical barriers to climb. Fiber optic cables are not currently very flexible and can easily be damaged by being bent past a certain limit. Also, the distance that light can be carried through a medium (without degradation) is much shorter than metal cables.

Optical transmission systems do have many benefits, but penetration into consumer markets will take considerable work. Apple and Sony, who are both rumored to be the major backers of this next step, would likely use this for extremely high bandwidth applications like video, hard drives and networking. Think next-gen high definition video displays, DVR-to-go synchronization of media players and video camera uploads to a computer. Until the hardware is polished, many technical roadblocks are cleared and materials become free, don't expect to see anything more than a very limited adoption of Light Peak in only the most needy of devices. Heed the cautionary tale of Apple's proprietary video connector (ADC) and Sony's mini-disc, memory stick, UMD, betamax,... well, just about everything from Sony (yes, except the CD), before jumping on any bandwagons.