The next generation of the FireWire standard has finally been approved by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 1394 working group. Building on the existing Firewall standards, the new S1600 and S3200 specifications will yield speeds of 1.6Gbps and 3.2GBps, respectively. With a publication date slated for October of this year, the new FireWire standard is expected to have a head start on the competing USB 3.0 standard, which also is likely to be published before the end of the year.

Even so, it is unknown how much this will help since, while FireWire is technically superior in terms of transfer speeds and low CPU utilization, it has decidedly lagged behind the popularity of USB over the last two years. For staunch FireWire proponents, the faster speed will of course be very much welcome.

For more about FireWire S1600 and S3200:
- check out this Ars Technica article