And because everybody loves Ars http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/02/thunderbolt-smokes-usb-firewire-with-10gbps-throughput.ars

So it seems speed (twice as fast as usb3) and daisy-chaining is what's being hyped. Does anyone else think that the speed really is redundant at this stage? Most people are still sitting on non-ssd drives, and would barely be able to push 100mb/s read/write. Transfer a HD movie in 30 seconds? Cool. Your disk will still need 2-4 minutes.

All I keep reading is "imagine this would be everywhere. Wouldn't that be awesome?". Well... yes, it would. But it's not.

For data, no.  Not much offered over USB 3.0.

I think for expansion capability this stomps USB though.  I could see it taking over for pretty much everything but graphics cards, keyboards, and mice.

Also USB 3.0 has an advertised speed, where Thunderbolt claims it to be actual speed.  And since there're two channels it's more like 20gbps.

Usb 3.0 is just getting started. I recently learned my so called 'notebook' is quite capable of handling usb 3.0. The 1TB HD I use is also set up for it. Too bad the internal HD is standard. Now that would be really cool.

Add it with one of these badboys and your laughing..

http://thessdreview.com/our-reviews/ocz-vertex-3-240gb-sata-3-ssd-review-raid-has-become-pointless/

I have my suspicions that USB 3.0 is DOA.

It'll still be on machines for a long, long time just because of backwards compatibility, but it's new and already outclassed.

Guess I don't really know how expensive the Thunderbolt controller will be though.

Firewire died because of apple licensing...

I wonder if this will die in a similiar way? Or did apple learn from Firewire?

Though I really don't know at the moment, I suspect Intel controls the licensing on this.

The sheer number of USB items is gonna keep it around for quite a while. Even if it does eventually lose out, it'd likely be in the same way as floppy disks. I.E. still offered years and years later.

True, but it's entirely possible to make a USB controller that plugs into Thunderbolt, so we could see some weird stuff happen.

Intel? Interesting. I didn't state what company owned it though, because it applies to any licensed standard. Quite a few failures in history related to that, including few IO buses.

For example VLB won even though its most crappy new generation bus system after ISA not because its better but because it allowed people to reuse old ISA cards which was expensive then!

I called it "Very Long Bus" and hated it because it was so hard to seat, being so long.

Since you did mention Firewire, it took a very long time to actually die.  I highly doubt Thunderbolt will have the same problems, since we are pushing the limits of a lot of current interfaces now.

I don't remember VLB or ISA cards...for good reason I suppose.

Mostly because of cameras. The cameras were expensive to replace, and used firewire. Apple finally killed it by not including it in new computer systems. Most computer already stopped including firewire support by then.

Yeah VLB won the new slot design for cards in computer, but thankfully lasted only short time before PCI was invented. Basically ISA is original design (IBM XT started it if I recall correctly...) and they badly needed a new design for faster access and stuff, and 3 designs come out. VLB was only one that allowed ISA to be reused.

In any case its forgotten by most people because it seriously sucked in 486 era because of VLB. I can't say how many times I almost broke expensive motherboard or card when trying to insert a VLB card!

They (Intel) are the reason USB is everywhere.  Thery do know how to license.  Sounds good.  It may be a product ahead of its market, but by the time it becomes ubiquitos, the market will be there.