Another Nail in the coffin of multiple external buss connections

Intel announced today Thunderbolt 3 will be built into future Intel CPUs under a non-exclusive royalty free license. Space saving on the logic board will probably be negligible but it should reduce power consumption because a separate controller will not be needed. Apparently the move is intended to force urge vendors to the new standard. That should portend more high speed accessories at lower cost for Apple users. cool

It is also likely that will enable Apple to continue their current development trajectory toward ever thinner, lighter, laptops with longer battery life and fewer external ports, which will not be good news for some users.

If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein