To herald it's maturity and movement into the PCI Special Interest Group (SIG), 3GIO was officially unveiled as PCI Express at WinHEC today. While the first silicon supporting PCI Express shouldn't be expected until the first half of 2003, this third generation I/O technology should now start to pick up momentum from withing the PCI development community. The new name also makes it clear that from a software point of view PCI Express is backward compatible with PCI specs, another key marketing point. What does PCI Express mean to the average user? It could mean everything from hot swap peripherals becoming standard, to huge security nightmares as you find out that your PCI Express HD module just went walkies. We're pretty certain it's cool technology, but this is just the beginning. For more information on the specs go to the PCI SIG Web site here.