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Lightning, a close relation of Thunderbolt. Photo Thomas Bresson / Flickr

Canon may soon be firing Thunderbolts from its cameras, according to a statement by the boss of Canon’s Video Products Group, Hiroo Edakubo. The press statement is the usual vapid fluff, but is pretty concrete when it comes to Canon’s intentions:

We are excited about Thunderbolt technology and feel it will bring new levels of performance and simplicity to the video creation market.

Thunderbolt is perfect for video, and especially the kind of high-end video market Canon caters to. Using the super high-speed connection, you could hook a camera through a RAID drive and into a monitor, neatly daisy-chained all along the way. And if you opt for the optical option, coming in the future, then you can use crazy long cables to make hooking up gear even easier. Thunderbolt on camcorders makes perfect sense.

But does this mean we’ll get Thunderbolt on our SLRs? Not necessarily. Canon and Sony, both of whom make still and video devices, have long used FireWire for video cameras and USB for stills cameras. This is unlikely to change until Thunderbolt becomes as ubiquitous as USB. After all, sensor sizes (and therefore file sizes) aren’t getting much bigger these days, and no manufacturer want to hobble their hardware by making it compatible with only a few computers.

On the other hand, I think we can expect Thunderbolt SD and CF card readers very soon. Imagine having your entire 8GB photo-shoot slurped into your computer in a few seconds. Yes please.

Chip Shot: Canon Signals Support for Intel Thunderbolt Technology [Intel]

See Also:

• Lacie's Little Big Drive Shows Thunderbolt Is Great for Storage …
• How Thunderbolt Could Hook Up Notebooks With Powerful Peripherals …
• New MacBooks Get Faster Chips, Thunderbolt Port
• New MacBooks Torn Open, Thunderbolt Chip Revealed

Would you like a Canon professional video camera that blasts footage to an editing rig at up to ten gigabits per second? How about a consumer-grade camcorder that transfers files to your home computer at the same blazing speed? Such things might be in the pipeline at Canon, but we can’t really say for sure. Today, the Japanese camera company came out in support of Intel’s Thunderbolt I/O, saying how “it will bring new levels of performance and simplicity to the video creation market,” but without so much as a formal press release — nor, in fact, a pledge to work towards any of the ultra-speedy optical gear of which we’ve been dreaming. Oh well, there’s always next week.

Canon ‘excited’ about Intel Thunderbolt I/O, makes no promise to support it originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Mar 2011 20:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Imagine, if you will, business travelers gallivanting across the globe with nary a care in the world — secure in the fact that should they lose their laptop by hook or by crook, they can disable it with a simple text message. Well, the dream is now a reality as Intel has put its third-gen vPro technology in Sandy Bridge Core i5 and i7 business chips, giving users the ability to lock down and reactivate a PC remotely via SMS. Not exactly a fresh idea, but nice to see it passed on to more modern chipsets. To further simplify the lives of IT professionals, the new version of vPro also has an encryption login requirement upon awakening from sleep mode, 1920 x 1200 resolution remote management, and host-based configuration to allow the set up of countless PCs at once. Of course, that assumes your employer’s willing to pony up for Chipzilla’s new gear — the economic downturn’s almost over, right?

Intel brings vPro to Sandy Bridge CPUs, makes losing your work laptop slightly less painful originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Mar 2011 20:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember that elusive Atom N570 that popped up here and there in machines debuting last month? At long last, the spec wizards over at Intel’s headquarters have seen fit to divulge a few more details surrounding the new silicon, and it goes a little like this: the chip runs at 1.66GHz, supports four threads and touts 1MB of L2 cache, an 8.5W TDP and DDR3-667. It’ll also start shipping this month, and should emerge soon on low-power machines from ASUS, Lenovo and Samsung. Meanwhile, HP has apparently seen fit to jump the gun a bit by refreshing its Mini 110 and 210 (shown above) netbooks, both of which are making their debut with the new processor over in Japan. It’ll be interesting to see how much traction such a chip gets now that AMD’s Zacate E-350 is out and about, but as mama always said, competition makes everything just a wee bit better.

Intel’s 1.66GHz Atom N570 slips into refreshed HP Mini 110 and 210 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Mar 2011 11:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Go to Lenovo’s online store looking for an X Series laptop to call your own and you’ll be greeted by the familiar X201. But go to Lenovo’s spec sheet repository and you’ll find a lush PDF file detailing a new ThinkPad X220 model that seems set to become available very shortly indeed. Sized at a somewhat unconventional 12.5 inches, this fresh contender will feature a new “buttonless” touchpad — though it retains the mouse keys in support of the TrackPoint navigator — while offering the sweet nectar of a 1366 x 768 IPS display, up to a 2.7GHz Core i7-2620M CPU, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, and a choice of Intel SSDs ranging up to 160GB. The 9-cell battery is rated to last you 15 hours and there’s an additional external battery pack that will keep you tether-free for 23 hours. Click past the break for the full specs.

[Thanks, Chris]

Update: Hello! The X220 Tablet is listed on Lenovo’s site as well. Thanks, Joe!

Continue reading Lenovo posts ThinkPad X220 specs online, includes IPS display, SSD, and 23-hour battery options

Lenovo posts ThinkPad X220 specs online, includes IPS display, SSD, and 23-hour battery options originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Mar 2011 04:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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