Digital Home Thoughts: Behold the arrival of USB 3.0

"USB 3.0 is here! After long delays and much touted promotion of the new specification, USB 3.0 is now finally available or soon will be on some new ASUS and Gigabyte motherboards. ASUS has also announced an add-in PCIe x4 card with USB 3.0 support, though it is compatible only with its P55 series of motherboards after a BIOS upgrade."

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

USB has become so ubiquitous with computers and small handheld gadgets, it is hard to imagine the mess that we would have had it not come along. Well, maybe not, since many smartphones still use proprietary connector cables for now. USB 3.0 is the long awaited update of the standard which has remained stagnant for the better part of a decade. With it comes faster speeds and more power carried along the cable. Unfortunately, the cables for USB 3.0 will only be partly compatible with the older versions, which I think will hamper adoption a little. That was one of the great things between USB 1.x and USB 2.0. The same cables, more or less, would work regardless of the version you were using. Still, the faster speed is definitely welcome, which will make syncing your devices faster, and the added power should bring charging times down.