Intel's Thunderbolt promise: It's all about fewer wires

Intel's Thunderbolt technology is a wet dream for techies: It runs at 10Gbps, can transfer a full HD movie in less than 30 seconds and uses two communications protocols for data transfer and displays. Geeks everywhere are salivating.

Thunderbolt will be huge, but once the geekspeak is pushed aside the impact of Intel's latest technology boils down to two words: Fewer wires.

Anyone who has had to move a PC recently knows the rat's nest that lurks behind the computer case. In a nutshell, your PC wiring is just as messy as your average data center except on a smaller scale. These wires can eat up time you could better use elsewhere.

Apple's latest MacBooks will be the first to use Thunderbolt, but rest assured other PC makers will join the club.

You can go through Intel's statement, our primer and various other takes, but the biggest takeaway is the wiring. There's a lot of Thunderbolt talk to digest. However, Intel won me over with this line:

All Thunderbolt technology devices share a common connector, and let individuals simply daisy-chain their devices one after another, connected by electrical or optical cables.

The rest of the Thunderbolt details are mere gravy. Just ditch that rat's nest behind my desktop and I'm in.