Chip Shot: Thunderbolt Strikes CES

In his CES Day 1 keynote, Intel CEO Paul Otellini demonstrated Acer’s new Aspire S5 Ultrabook with built-in Thunderbolt technology running Windows 7 for the first time. Elsewhere at CES, Thunderbolt sightings included Lenovo’s ThinkPad S430 laptop, an AOC display, as well as Seagate and Western Digital external hard-drives. In all, more than 20 Thunderbolt-enabled products were shown that are either shipping now or will be soon. Thunderbolt technology is already found on most lines of Apple Mac computers (MacBook Pro, iMac, MacBook Air, and Mac Mini) and Apple Thunderbolt Display, as well as products from LaCie, Blackmagic Design, Promise, Matrox, and Sonnet. Others including OCZ, Belkin, Elgato, AJA, G-Tech by Hitachi, Atto, Magma, Avid, and Universal Audio have announced products that are expected to be shipping this year.