Okay, so this is kind of exciting…

USB 3.0  - 5Gb/s
Thunderbolt – 10 Gb/s
Domestic TeleCom’s Optcal Fiber – ~14Tb/s

obviously all dependant on distance.

However the latest discovery, and current front page news on BBC’s News portal

Researchers have set a new record for the rate of data transfer using a single laser: 26 terabits per second.

This is pretty cool, imagine data streaming rates that fast?  If the UK is to keep up with the rest of the developed world availability of high speed internet is something the government really need to be looking into, there are places in the UK where broadband is still unavaiable (5% of the country as of the Ofcom survery in 2005, but that page lists the limited avaiability of other services, such as DAB, and DTT too.)

<rant>

The average UK internet speed is 2.95 Mb/s according to Broadband-Expert.

Look at internet speeds around the world, on this handy infographic.
Why is it countries like Japan and Korea can reach average speeds of 61, and 46 Mb/s respectively?

Why is this when such a greater wealth of technology is available, admittedly it comes at a cost, but is it not worth it to have a high speed infrastructure?

More information here.

</rant>

Okay rant over, and some of this information is pretty cool, I look forward to the day when this sort of technology is readily available

Ash

Okay, so I’m slightly skeptical about this device, the website is fairly barebones, and it just looks like many concept pieces you can find on the internet which don’t actually exist.  However the NoteSlate claims to have a release date set for June 2011 for the Basic models, Black or White e-ink, and December 2011 for Red, Green & Blue e-ink, what i’m really excited about though is one that is set for the following year with a multicolour function.

It seems to be the ideal geeks toy, picture taking something to lecture that you can’t browse facebook on but you still enjoy using because its a hot piece of tech, I for one think a device such as this would massively boost productivity, in place of a laptop with internet browsing capabilities, it has set firmware, you can’t use it for gaming either (Although i envisage the first hack released for it will probably attempt to turn it into an affordable 13 inch Graphics tab)

Above is the multicolour version estimated for some point in 2012.

The price tag associated at the moment stands at $99 USD or ~£67 GBP which i see as being fairly reasonable for this kind of device, its battery life is 150-180 hours on a full charge, and WiFi is an optional extra (apparently for no extra cost).

Content is retrieved from the device via USB, over WiFi or SD Card Reader, and it can store up to 32 GB of ‘notes’ on the aforementioned SD Card (which by the way is quite a lot of notes).

Devices like this always have their flaws, and quite honestly i can see the price being hiked up on release.

The website can be found here http://www.noteslate.com