As you rummage through a box of spare cables, specially set aside for the day you need it the most, why does it always seem that the very connection you require is the only one you can not find?

While many of us have quietly despaired at the numerous types of computer cable available on the market, the engineers at Intel have decided to take action. Now, despite a feeling in the industry that standardisation would first be achieved through wireless technology, Intel is predicting a fibre optic cable will soon replace USB, FireWire and fast video connections - more specifically its very own Light Peak technology.

At the Intel Developer Forum conference in San Francisco last year, Intel unveiled Light Peak with an impressive demonstration. The idea is a simple one: to use optical fibre instead of copper cable to standardise the connection of all devices with speeds that could far exceed the newly certified USB 3.0 standard. One fibre-optic line could soon link PC and monitor as well as external hard drives, cameras, videos, webcams or anything else that plugs into a PC - even another PC.

Intel’s Jeff Ravencraft, President and Chairman of the USB Implementers Forum, commented: “Because copper wires such as those in the current USB 2 and new USB 3 standards have limits on how fast they can transmit signals I think the next transition is going to be to optics."

Light Peak has received crucial support from industry players including Sony and Apple and could be available as early as next year with initial transfer speeds of 10Gbps (as compared to 5Gbps with USB 3.0). In addition to these data transfer rates, it is the potential distance covered which could hold the key to Light Peak’s success with a viable signal over 100 metres.

Click here to watch a Light Peak demo on YouTube