Ever since Intel launched its high-performance Thunderbolt interface, it’s been fighting to win market share away from USB devices. There’s never been any question of which standard was faster — first-generation Thunderbolt blew USB 3.0 out of the water — but higher device costs, expensive cables, and limited OEM uptake have limited Thunderbolt’s market penetration. Today, with the announcement of Intel’s Alpine Ridge, that schism is effectively over. Third-generation Thunderbolt won’t just be faster than USB 3.0 or USB 3.1, it’ll offer all of its performance over a reversible USB-C plug.
Thunderbolt 3, aka Alpine Ridge, accomplishes this by integrating a USB 3.1 controller directly on-platform, neatly bypassing the entire “Should I use Thunderbolt 3 or USB” argument altogether.

Here’s what this means, in aggregate: You can now run DisplayPort, Thunderbolt, USB 3, and PCI-Express over a single Thunderbolt port. Even better, the USB 3.1 port in question is USB 3.1 Gen 2, as opposed to the USB 3.1 Gen 1 (aka USB 3.0), port that Apple uses for its new MacBook’s USB-C port. Unlike Thunderbolt 2, which kept total bandwidth the same as Thunderbolt 1.0, but allowed for more flexible bandwidth sharing options to improve performance, Thunderbolt doubles real bandwidth to up to 40Gbps.

Intel doesn’t include PCI-Express on its list of interfaces, but at this point, it could. 40Gbps works out to 5GB/s worth of bandwidth — which means Thunderbolt 3 can provide roughly a bit less bandwidth than an older PCI-Express 2.0 connection. The new standard offers support for up to two 4K 60Hz panels or a single 5K 60Hz display (this makes sense, as a 5K 60Hz panel is roughly 1.8x as many pixels as a 4K panel). This works out to an x4 PCI-E 3.0 connection. While not exactly suited for multi-GPU configurations, it should be enough bandwidth to run a single card at near-full speed in the vast majority of cases.
The combined Thunderbolt 3 / USB 3.1 standard will offer up to 100W for laptop charging if the manufacturer certifies the port to draw that much power and 15W of power for standard, bus-powered devices. 15W is significant because that’s more than enough energy to run most hard drive docks or external peripherals, including low-power portable displays.

The new configurations are also supposed to be flexible. Second device ports offer all the same functionality as the computer port, meaning you can plug a USB device into a monitor, which then connects to the computer via a Thunderbolt cable. Up to six devices can be daisy chained. Intel is also pushing the entire concept of a Thunderbolt external graphics dock for mobile gaming, and even the use of Thunderbolt for networking purposes.
One of the problems with Thunderbolt has been its reliance on expensive cabling. While the standard has never required the optical cables that were originally meant to debut alongside it, the available copper cables have often been expensive. Intel has improved the situation somewhat: Thunderbolt 3 will support passive cabling up to two meters with bandwidth of up to 20Gbps, 40Gbps active copper cables for full 40Gbps connectivity (again, up to two meters long), and 40Gbps optical cables arriving in 2016, with lengths of up to 60 meters.

Could Thunderbolt 3 finally catch on?

I’ve always been dubious about Thunderbolt’s chances of finding wide acceptance, but this latest announcement makes me think claims of Thunderbolt’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. FireWire may have lost its fight with USB, but FireWire never took the step of integrating a USB controller into the same package.
The two major questions remaining are how much Thunderbolt chips will cost and when they’ll ship. Intel has said it expects to begin shipping devices by the end of this year, which implies the new technology will show up on Skylake. If the licensing fees are reasonable, high-end devices with combined Thunderbolt / USB 3 ports could quickly become commonplace.

Brain waves and their potential for use as human biometric identification, which we first covered in 2013, have risen to the surface once again, as hacks, Internet hoaxes and scams, and phishing attacks have become all too common on the Web. Humanity knows the password isn’t secure enough to remain the universal standard forever Examining so-called ‘passthoughts’ can already serve as a way to distinguish humans, but a new study from Spain points to word meanings as a specific type of identifier. A team lead by Blair Armstrong, head of the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain, and Language, recorded the brainwaves of 45 individuals as they read through a list of 75 acronyms such as “DVD” and “FBI.” The team scored a 94% accuracy rating in using the brain waves of the patients to distinguish their identities.
Word meanings are often more “set in stone” in the brain than isolated memories, such as when a person trips and falls on a hard surface, or sprains an ankle sliding into first base in a college baseball game. Some memories haunt us with emotions we can’t shake. Other memories, once deemed horrific, serve as stepping stones to greater awareness of ourselves as time passes. While these memories (called episodic) can change over time as our interpretations of such events change, the meanings of words don’t change as often. We may find ourselves in a new career as compared with where we were five years ago. But the meaning Americans attach to the word “dollar,” or Europeans attach to the word “euro,” doesn’t change – even if currency exchange rates do.

Meanwhile, no two fingerprints are alike — but fingerprints, like passwords, can be manipulated with some know-how and mastery. Hackers have shown in recent days how fingerprint scanners, such as the ones on the Apple iPhone 6 and Samsung Galaxy S5, can become targets for hackers. Fingerprints are more secure than passwords, and especially passcodes (which often have just four numerals). But fingerprints are still subject to possible extrapolation from the surface of mobile devices. Passthoughts can’t be visibly touched, but reside within an individual.
To make the case against fingerprint security, Armstrong recounts a 2005 Malaysian carjacking where a victim’s fingers were cut off to gain access to his car starter that was fingerprint-guarded. With Apple’s and Google’s decisions to encrypt newer iOS (iPhone 6 and 6 Plus) and Android devices (Android M, with its native fingerprint security), consumers could find themselves in legal situations where they’re prompted to register their fingerprint to unlock a device for law enforcement access. Such evidence uncovered during a fingerprint unlock event could be used in American courts to indict or convict a suspect. Passthoughts could not be subjected to legal statutes as easily.
Passthoughts could become the measuring standard for biometric identification in the days and months ahead, but the concept needs some work before becoming a form of mainstream security. Could brain waves indict an individual in the future? We sure hope not, since the acronym “IRS” would betray the thoughts of every American taxpayer alone come April 15th.

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Design and Ports

Keyboard and UltraNav 

Performance

Wireless Options

Battery Life

Exquisitely thin and light notebooks are all the rage, and though the 2008 MacBook Air wasn't the first by a mile (Lenovo's own ThinkPad X300 came out around the same time), it set the standard for fashionable, razor thin laptops. Lenovo has once again put their unique ThinkPad spin on the trend, and the result is a powerhouse portable with rugged ThinkPad good looks. It's not silver or curvy (look to Lenovo's own IdeaPad U260 for an ultraportable that makes a fashion statement), it comes only in the usual soft touch ThinkPad matte black, but it has more brains than any other 13.3" super-thin notebook on the market. It's also ThinkPad durable with an internal rollcage and Mil Spec certification for 8 tests. And if you're a ThinkPad person, you'll think the X1 is simply gorgeous. Better yet, it improves on the X300 and X301 in three key areas: price, horsepower and thinness. Though it doesn't strike us as impossibly thin as early release images led us to believe, it's plenty skinny enough at 0.63 inches at its thinnest point, and very light at 3.73 pounds. The 13.3" ultraportable doesn't skimp on power: our review unit shipped with a second gen Intel Core i5 2520M clocked at 2.5GHz. You can get the machine with a 2.1GHz Core i3 or a mouth-watering 2.7GHz Intel Core i7. Our machine, with the Core i5, 320 gig HDD, Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, webcam, fingerprint reader, Windows 7 Professional 64 bit, 4 gigs of RAM and a 3 year warranty sells for $1,399. The X1 starts at $1,349 putting it in the same price range as the MacBook Air and Samsung Series 9, but it obviously offers much more horsepower since it doesn't rely on ultramobile CPUs. Intel HD 3000 graphics handle video playback, Photoshop and even some 3D gaming nicely, and you can check out our gaming video below to check it out. The 0.65-0.84 inch thick notebook's battery is sealed inside, and Lenovo claims 5 hours on a charge, which seems mildly optimistic (we've been getting 4 hours with brightness set to 2/3 of max and WiFi on). We also have the optional $149 battery wedge that doubles battery life and weighs only 13 ounces. That means up to 10 hours of unplugged time with a weight around 4.5 pounds. Lenovo incorporated new charging technology into the X1 that allows it to charge up to 80% in the first hour-- sweet. Why buy this instead of the also impressive 12.5" Lenovo ThinkPad X220? The 13.3", 1366 x 768 display is a bit larger and easier on the eyes for those of you who hate tiny text, and the keyboard is simply the best I've ever used (and that includes a lot of ThinkPads). The sculpted keys, spacing and tactile feel are perfect and should work well for those of you with larger hands. If 13" is your sweet spot, the X1 is currently your only ThinkPad option. As you'd expect from a ThinkPad, the machine is tough despite its slim design and light weight. It has the usual rollcage design, liberal use of metal and the display is covered edge-to-edge with Corning Gorilla Glass. The display doesn't top the X220 with the IPS option, but at 350 nits brightness we like it, though the Gorilla Glass introduces some glare. The display panel has relatively little flex and no light pooling of the display when the panel is pressed from behind. The internal rollcage.

Design and Ergonomics The X1 is every bit a ThinkPad: it's angular, has Lenovo's signature matte soft touch finish that resists scratching and fingerprints, and it's built like a tank. Typical of recent ThinkPads, the X1 has both a Trackpoint embedded in the keyboard and a buttonless trackpad. The trackpad works fairly well (buttonless designs are sometimes troublesome) and you've got left and right mouse buttons and a nice tactile click when you press down on the trackpad. The keyboard really steals the show: it's not just spill-resistant with drain holes on the underside, it's backlit with 2 stage backlighting that you'll activate using the Fn + spacebar keys (say goodbye to the ThinkLight). The key spacing feels perfect and the classic keystroke and force are here. The keys are sculpted and the overall design is clearly influenced by Lenovo's recent IdeaPad notebooks. The backspace, enter, tab and shift keys are oversized, and Lenovo squeezes small Page Up and Page Down buttons in just above the left and right arrow keys. The notebook's volume, speaker mute and mic mute keys are conveniently located on the keyboard deck and most ports are at the rear. These are: Ethernet RJ45, a SIM card slot (for optional WWAN), a USB 3.0 port, HDMI port, mini Display Port, combined eSata/USB 2.0 and the power jack. An additional USB 2.0 port and 3.5mm combo headphone/mic jack live under a rubber door on the left side. The laptop has a sleep indicator LED at the right rear corner of the lid and an illuminated power button on the keyboard deck. The wireless on/off hardware switch and SD/MMC card reader are located on the right side. To access the hard drive, you'll remove a door on the left side that's secured with a small Phillips head screw. To access the single RAM slot and wireless cards, you'll unscrew two small Phillips head screws (labeled) on the bottom and remove the keyboard. Though Lenovo eschews curves in their ThinkPad line, they don't avoid interesting angles: the front and side edges don't taper in a curvy MacBook Air fashion but rather fall away in a bevel. This looks cool and it's certainly different from other notebooks, though the very thin and hard front corners can be a pain point if the notebook slides forward in your lap. Heat and Noise The ThinkPad X1 has a single large vent on the left side near the back, and lines of vent holes on the bottom. Extremely thin machines made with metals tend to transfer heat and get very hot to the touch, but the X1 stays relatively cool when doing typical business tasks. The fan is audible and on most of the time (whether plugged in or unplugged), but it's not screamingly loud thanks to Lenovo's "Owl" design cooling fan blades that reduce air turbulence. That said, this is a machine with a full mobile Intel Core CPU rather than a ULV CPU, and it requires some cooling, so the fan will rarely be off. When we played very demanding 3D games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the laptop blew extremely hot air out the main vent (110 F) and the hotspot on the bottom reached an uncomfortably hot 103 F. To be fair, COD was more than the X1 could handle and it struggled to maintain 20fps, while Left 4Dead 2 played fine and didn't heat up the machine to seriously uncomfortable levels. When using the X1 for Photoshop CS5, MS Office and web browsing, temperatures remained lap-safe.

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