Thunderbolt
Thunderbolt will never replace USB for slow peripherals. Its an enhancement over Displayport with high throughput speeds and the ability to connect PCI express like interfaces to the host computer, but only a few. The power and overhead makes no sense for a mouse. The chip will be more expensive than a commodity mouse. But it may be useful for audio, Apogee is supposed to be working on it.
The other PC manufacturers are not jumping on and have been waiting for a while to see if it has legs (It was around for a while as Light Peak). This is a classic technology to solve a problem that no one really has.
The best strategy in the computer biz is to work back from the desired output finding the most appropriate solution and get the hardware and software that makes it work. And expect to replace it in a few years. This has not changed since the days of the IBM 1120. Audio consumers are more oriented to really long tech cycles and don't want to buy stuff that is obsolete in a short while. Even though most high end audio components fall from grace in a matter of weeks from introduction.
Thunderbolt will never replace USB for slow peripherals. Its an enhancement over Displayport with high throughput speeds and the ability to connect PCI express like interfaces to the host computer, but only a few. The power and overhead makes no sense for a mouse. The chip will be more expensive than a commodity mouse. But it may be useful for audio, Apogee is supposed to be working on it.
The other PC manufacturers are not jumping on and have been waiting for a while to see if it has legs (It was around for a while as Light Peak). This is a classic technology to solve a problem that no one really has.
The best strategy in the computer biz is to work back from the desired output finding the most appropriate solution and get the hardware and software that makes it work. And expect to replace it in a few years. This has not changed since the days of the IBM 1120. Audio consumers are more oriented to really long tech cycles and don't want to buy stuff that is obsolete in a short while. Even though most high end audio components fall from grace in a matter of weeks from introduction.