The Universal Serial Bus (USB) has the highest consumer success rate — it’s been shipped on over 3 billion devices in 2008 — according to research firm In-Stat. Bow there’s an upgrade with the coming USB 3.0 standard.
Stacey Higginbotham reviews the high points:
- It’s fast: Dubbed Super-Speed USB, it will offer transfer speeds of 4.8 Gbps compared with High-Speed USB 480Mbps transfer speeds.
- It’s backwards compatible: Your existing USB 2.0 stuff will also work on the 3.0 ports and vice versa, although you won’t get the “super speeds.”
- It’s coming soon: Vendors will ship some boards at the end of this year, so mainstream consumers should see them on their computers and certain devices starting in 2010.
- It’s powerful: Like USB 2.0, it will transmit electricity, which means you can still use it to charge your gadgets.
- It’s energy efficient: It supports reduced power operation and an idle power mode, but it will still make your CPU work like crazy to help it reach those fast data transfer speeds.
- It’s backed by all vendors.
USB 3.0 silicon such as USB host controllers and hubs are expected to be available in the latter half of 2009. Mass market consumer-oriented products based around this new silicon are expected shortly thereafter.
