What is Thunderbolt (Light Peak)? | Sync™ Blog – INTEL – Light Peak technology

I know this has been said before, but maybe this time it will be true.  You have two heavy weights –  Apple and Intel behind the technology and it just makes so much sense.  Remove all your ports on your systems and just have ONE for everything….

Originally this was the goal of USB, but it has failed due to performance and it not really being developed for Video.  Very interesting and Apple is the first to market with their new line of notebooks with the standard.  

I can see this taking hold very quickly, quicker then what the article below indicates – it’s too bad that they missed the current INTEL processor change-up as this technology might have been included in that refresh of systems from other major players like HP – DELL and Lenovo.  I think the next round of processor updates you will see both the Thunderbolt and USB on new systems and sometime next year USB will be removed from the picture completely.

What is Thunderbolt (Light Peak)? | Sync™ Blog.

GOOD BYE – USB

 In its initial out-of-the-lab incarnation, Thunderbolt can use either copper or fiber connections for 10Gbps bidirectional communication. That speed is 20 times faster than the theoretical limit of USB 2.0, 12 times faster than FireWire 800, and twice as fast as USB3. According to Intel, however, the 10Gbps isn’t just a theoretical peak speed, but usable bandwidth. This allows a single port to communicate with multiple devices simultaneously for a combined throughput of 10Gbps.

That 10Gbps is much faster than most current I/O technologies. With two devices pushing data at the maximum rate, you could back up a full Blu-ray movie in 30 seconds, or sync 64GB of music to a portable device in about a minute. Copying the entire contents of the Library of Congress in digital form—approximately 20TB of data—would take about 35 minutes.

Active electrical-only cables can be up to 3 meters (just under 10 feet) in length, similar to current FireWire and USB standards. Active optical cables, which use fiber for data transmission and copper for up to 10W of power, can be “tens of meters” in length. Passive fiber-only cables could potentially be hundreds of meters long. These lengths enable more flexible positioning between devices and computers instead of relying on specialized connections or relatively pokey wireless solutions.

Thunderbolt Technology Brief (PDF) (intel.com)

To get even more technical information take a look at the following POST: ars technica

Smartphones – Microsoft & Nokia JOIN FORCES!

Two huge companies are getting into bed together to go against the NEW leaders in the smart phone arena. If these two very large companies do it right, I would think that both Apple and Google are going to have a fight on their hands… but will they – Can they?  To this point neither have shown themselves to be quick to market – Reason for them joining together!

The other questions is how long before we see product, Iphone 5 is coming, new Android O/S coming – things are changing quickly and can these players get into the game in time?  Microsoft already took too long to get into the mix, though they did bring a great product to market – one that people should be looking at as an alternative.

 

Related Articles

• Nokia and Microsoft team up to build ‘iPhone killer’ (thestar.com)
• Nokia, Microsoft to Join Forces, Shares Tumble (businessweek.com)
• Smartphone Wars: Nokia’s Rallying Cry (news.sky.com)

Security – iPhone Password Lock – Do you feel SAFE?

I guess this is not specific to Education, but I know many Tech people who use the iPhone  – so I thought they might be interested in this article.

Research being carried out at the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology in Germany has revealed an iPhone password can be recovered in just 6 minutes from a locked device. In other words, if you lose your iPhone, but it has a password lock, anyone can unlock it in just a few minutes without having to figure out the passcode.

It’s also made clear in their study that using encryption on the iPhone is not a way around this problem as the encryption relies on the user’s secret information (revealed by this method) to gain access. The best advice at the moment is to change passwords as soon as a device is lost or stolen to limit the damage.

It only take 6 minutes to reveal an iPhone password

Apple – IPAD more then for GAMES! – REMOTE ACCESS…..

Want to have access to your home PC, your work PC (might be a little difficult) – Well for FREE you can set up your PC, download a single AP from the AP store and your almost ready to run your PC software, view your files etc…

Great VIDEO demonstration from itbusiness believe it or not.

Video Rewind: Turn your iPad into a remote desktop connection

TRICK & TIP – Gmail Accounts – If you have Multiple accounts and want to VIEW!

Nice little trick if you have multiple Gmail accounts like many tech type people do…..

Switch Between Multiple Gmail Accounts With a URL Hack

Security – Keeping Kids SAFE – Filtering Emails & Soon Social Media

Something all parents want to do is keep our kids safe from cyberbullying, sexting and inappropriate messages which is very difficult.   There are a lot of things we can do, but we all need something else. 

Soon there will be a program called MouseMail that can filter messages on your kids smartphones.  Most kids will not be happy about it, but when are they when we as parents try to protect them from others and themselves.

ARTICLE – USATODAY – MouseMail filtering program traps kids’ cyberbullies

MouseMail’s free Web-based e-mail features will be available Thursday at MouseMail.com; the free text message filtering applications will launch that day on most major smartphones, with Apple iPhone expected to add the app soon. Later this month, a premium service will be added (no price set) that monitors social networks and lets parents look for mentions of their kids’ names.

HOW IT ALL WORKS:

• Parents add children’s e-mail accounts into the family profile page on MouseMail.com’s portal.

• MouseMail checks each e-mail against a list of approved contacts and a dictionary of suspicious or inappropriate words.

• E-mails that do not include suspicious words or phrases and are sent from approved e-mail contacts pass on to the child’s e-mail account. on Google, Yahoo or other e-mail sites. Questionable e-mails are sent to parents.

• Parents download an app to a child’s smartphone and set up the program so that they are forwarded questionable text messages. Parents can get alerts about e-mail and text messages online or on their own cellphones

MOUSEMAIL.COM

e-Reader – New options – Google is entering the Market

The e-Reader market just keeps getting more complicated… Lots of new readers coming with different formats and how do you make the right choice – do you wait – do you buy for Christmas this year?

Well Google might just make that choice a little easier and it might be before the end of the year.  They are going to have an online service where you can obtain your books for any of the multiple formats out there.   If they do this right many of the current makers of e-Readers might just have a hard time selling books for their products since Google will most likely have much larger selection and hopefully really competitive priced products.  Well we will just have to wait and see….

That’s my two cents on the subject!

Google’s bookstore may launch in time for the holidays

 image via assets.gearlive.com How do you decide which e-book to buy?  After all, there are Kindles, Nooks, iPads and now Google is planning their own e-book.  In fact, they are in the final stages of production. What is taking them so long?  In a recent WSJ.com article, Google product manager and director Scott Dougall said, “Because of the complexity of this project, we didn’t want to come out with something that wasn’t thorough.”  According to … Read More

via Dr. Diane Hamilton’s Blog

Smartphone – Windows Phone 7 – Couple days later!

I love the media – really! 

They love to have headlines to attract readers and most of the headlines today are negative on the sales to date of Microsoft Phone 7.  Some of the numbers being mentioned is only 40K units sold to date – that would be North America (US & Canada).

I believe the uptake will be slower today

1) The market is a much different world then when the iPhone was announced

2) Since the iPhone many other manufactures have come to market, so a lot of the early adopters have already invested in a phone with a contract period

3) Economically there is a huge difference, the world has gone through some difficult times the last year or so and most are still be very careful.

When you put all these things together, the growth of Windows Phone 7 will be one that grows over time.  They have a wonderful product with some really cool features you don’t find on anything today.  There application store is growing daily, but it will take time to build quality titles.

Just give it time!

Related Articles

• Report: 40,000 Windows Phone 7 devices sold (news.cnet.com)
• Why Windows Phone 7’s first day sales numbers don’t matter (venturebeat.com)
• Are You In Line For A Windows 7 Phone? (MSFT, T) (businessinsider.com)
• Windows Phone 7 Success Tied to a Million in Sales (CIO)

Apple MACBook AIR POST#2 – the day after!

 

Yesterday Apple announced some new product and the press has not been too kind with the 2nd edition of the MACBOOK AIR release.

Negative PRESS a day after

 

Apple Announcement – NEW MACBook AIR

The announcement had other items, but the MACBook AIR needed a refresh and got one!  This is not a work horse notebook, but it does look great and has a battery that never stops! 

The first day was filled with just spec’s and details, the 2nd day was filled with comments and a number of negative pieces – Negative PRESS a day after

Both models will have Intel Core 2 Duo processors starting at 1.4 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics cards and come standard with 2 GB of RAM (expandable to 4GB). The 11.6″ model boasts a screen resolution of 1366×768 while the 13.3″ model goes to 1440×900. Both come with flash storage: the 11.6″ MacBook Air with 64GB base and the 13.3″ model with 128GB.   READ FULL ARTICLE

Related Articles

• Updated: New Apple MacBook Air unleashed (techradar.com)
• Apple introduces 11.6-inch MacBook Air, available today for $999 (engadget.com)
• Apple Announces The Apple MacBook Air Refresh Including A Smaller Model (techcrunch.com)
• Apple Announces The Apple MacBook Air Refresh Including A Smaller Model (crunchgear.com)