Thunderbolt to strike Canon users

Overnight, the Web has been buzzing with rumours of some sort of collaboration between Canon and Apple. It turns out Canon is the next major brand to jump on board the Thunderbolt train, Intel's I/O technology that allows the transfer of data at high speed in and out of your laptop or PC.

It was inevitable that big consumer brands make use of Thunderbolt, though to what extent and in what way has been the question. Until 2012 the technology is exclusive to Apple's recently refreshed Macbook Pro range.

There are a variety of other companes lining up to bring out Thunderbolt products, but the vision we've seen so far from Apple has been as a way to connect high-end equipment like broadcast video editing hardware.

While Intel's announcement sheds zero light on what actual Canon products will incorporate Thunderbolt, it seems a natural fit for the company's camcorders and DSLRs. A Canon executive supplied a short comment for Intel's announcement, which specifically mentioned video creation.

We can certainly see the benefits of 10Gbps data transfers with a high capacity memory card stuffed of RAW images or HD video.