Intel's Light Peak - my new dock is ready!

The prospects of a super high-speed optical data standard have been long-touted and desired, but problems have limited its adoption. How expensive are the connectors? How expensive and difficult is the interface? Can you connect multiple taps over long distances? It appears Intel may have solved these problems, but it is still too early to tell.

Light Peak was announced this week at the Intel Developer's Forum [IDF] in San Francisco. The annual tech event showcases new technologies and standards being developed by Intel and its partners. Besides USB 3.0, Light Peak may be one of the most exciting new standards out there.

Some questions still remain. Can you couple multiple runs together, or are you limited to one run [ie point to point or multipoint]? Intel claims that 100-meter runs are possible with Light Peak and this is a fantastic achievement, but if you cannot create multiple drops, with flexible interconnects, the standards' applications may be limited.

Another great application of Light Peak technology would be a dock for your laptop with ONE small connector, the Light Peak connector. You simply drop your laptop onto a small docking pad, the Light Peak connector is energized, and BAM, your HD video display, keyboard, mouse, dolby multi-channel audio, all your external USB 3.0 hard drives, etc. are all connected at blazingly-fast speeds! Now, that would be awesome to behold.

Hopefully, Light Peak will not be simply interesting. Hopefully it will also be useful.