No sooner does Apple drop the MacBook Pro's ExpressCard slot than the ExpressCard organization itself announces a big upgrade to version 2. The *ExpressCard Standard 2.0 *has one key difference: speed.
How much faster? Ten times faster, according to the specifications. Transfer tops out at 5Gbps, meaning that anything that needs to shift lots of data will benefit, including video transfer, eSata adapters for external hard drives and anything using the upcoming USB 3.0 spec. In short, it turns the pedestrian slot in the side of many computers into a speedy and useful accessory.
Will we ever see this in a portable Mac? Given that Apple seems to be playing musical chairs with ports specs, killing off FireWire only to resurrect it just months later, for instance, it's quite possible that this slot will make it into future revisions. Then again, this announcement from the ExpressCard people is only the finalization of the spec itself: We'll have to wait a while for actual products to ship. By then, we'll probably be buying MacBooks hewn from solid blocks of adamantium using lightsabers.
Press release [ExpressCard Org via Slashgear]
