Will 2012 be Thunderbolt's year? Devices arrive in force at CES

ars technica by Chris Foresman

Peripherals that use Thunderbolt, the high-speed interconnect developed by Intel and heartily embraced by Apple, have taken their sweet time coming to market. The options so far include a high-end professional RAID from Promise, an expensive portable RAID from LaCie, a pricey display from Apple, and a $50 cable necessary to connect them all. However, a number of companies in attendance at CES had some interesting products to show us, most of which will hit the market this year. Though Apple launched Thunderbolt in full force across most of its products in 2011, 2012 may finally see the standard gaining traction across the industry.

We got to see several products that have been announced but not yet released to the public, including Blackmagic's Intensity Shuttle video device, Belkin's long-promised Thunderbolt Express dock, and LaCie's 2Big Thunderbolt drives.

Belkin's Thunderbolt Express dock in particular has been significantly redesigned from the initial concepts the company reveled at IDF last fall. It now features three USB 2.0 ports; FireWire 800, HDMI, 3.5mm audio, and gigabit Ethernet ports; and a downstream Thunderbolt port for daisy-chaining additional devices. The design also includes a cable pass through for a MagSafe power adapter, designed to make it easy to keep on a desk for docking portable Macs. read more...