Getting Connected Faster - USB 3.0 on the way

Intel chief executive Paul Otellini at the Intel Developers' Forum in San Francisco this week. The latest USB 3.0 is being showcased at the event. Photo / AP.

USB was a game changer when it was unleashed on an unsuspecting world.

Instead of bulky serial, parallel and other proprietary PC connection ports, USB was slimmer, slinkier and standardised everything.

Connecting a printer, a mouse, speakers or even a USB powered humping dog became plug and play rather than connect and pray.

Hooking stuff up to your PC is about to undergo yet another change for the better thanks to USB 3.0 which is being showcased at Intel's Developer Forum in San Francisco.

Intel's "USB Community" showcase is filled to overflowing with USB 3.0 (known as USB SuperSpeed in marketing speak) goodies from all manner of companies. The USB 3.0 gear on display ranges from surreal test/developer PCs to amazing prototype USB peripherals.

Most impressive of all however is Point Grey's sample HD USB 3.0 camera, which can stream full HD 1080p video over USB 3.0.

Whilst sending 1080p video over home broadband in real-time is a mission impossible at the moment, Point Grey's camera could be a serious contender for video conferencing in corporate environments where big data pipes are a matter of course and reducing travel budgets is a big priority.

When it finally launches (and the stall attendants assured me it is soon) USB 3.0 will not just be slightly faster than the current USB, it'll be 10x faster, with speeds rocketing from an already healthy 480Mbps to an astonishing 5Gbps.

To put this in perspective, copying a 6Gb movie from an external drive with bog standard USB typically takes just over 2 hours. Using USB 3.0 it'll slip to a jaw dropping 3.3 minutes.

Improved energy management and a more efficient operating design also means that USB 3.0 will consume less power compared to current USB. This is great news for notebook PC owners wanting to wring every last minute out of batteries.

Strangely enough, whilst being more energy efficient, USB 3.0 will also deliver more power (900mA up from 500mA with USB 2.0), which means charging portable devices will be faster and lugging around a separate power brick for that USB widget in your laptop bag could become a thing of the past.

USB 3.0 is fully backwards-compatible with USB 2.0 doodads as its five connector pins in the USB plug sit above and behind the existing USB 2.0 pins.

Whilst the plugs/sockets on USB 3.0 hardware differ from those on existing USB 2.0 gadgets, the connector on the other end of USB 3.0 cables stay the same rectangular shape, allowing existing USB gadgets to work with USB 3.0 ports.

USB 3.0 chipsets are expected to be hit OEM manufacturers during late 2009 with USB 3.0 gadgety goodness expected to hit retailer shelves in early 2010.

If USB 3.0 gives us a faster near term, Intel's Light Peak bombshell announcement at today's Intel Developers Forum will give us connectivity akin to being on methamphetamines whilst holding down a fast forward button.

Where USB uses copper wires to do its thing, Light Peak uses fibre optic cables and light to connect devices and peripherals at a positively blistering 10Gbps (twice the speed of USB 3.0). Even more impressive still, it has potential to scale up to speeds of 100Gb/s over the next decade.

At 10Gb/s, transferring a full-length Blu-Ray movie takes a mere 30 seconds.

Being able to zing data about at uber-sonic speeds will see Light Peak being utilised for a multitude of different things. Light Peak can run multiple protocols simultaneously over a single cable, allowing it to do everything from providing fast access to hard drives to connecting multiple screens to PCs.

As the initial implementation of Light Peak can maintain blindingly fast 10Gbps connections over distances of up to 100-metres, it could also in theory become a de-facto means of networking PCs.

Another big advantage of Light Peak being an optical rather than electrical is that it is less prone to interference and will also use extremely petite connectors.

This should in turn allow for ultra slim notebook and desktop PC form factors (peripheral connector sockets tend to be one of the major constraints to slimming PCs down).

There is one caveat with Light Peak though, at the moment it is still a technology being pushed by a single (albeit hugely significant) vendor.

Intel will need to convince PC and peripheral makers to adopt it as well as push for it to become a ratified standard before it'll gain a mass market presence. Here's hoping it pans out.