USB 3.0 spec to arrive next year

First there was USB 1.0. Then there was USB 2.0. Can you guess what's next? That's right: USB 3.0. At the Fall IDF show in San Francisco, a consortium of vendors including Intel, Microsoft, HP, TI, NEC and NXP announced that a USB 3.0 spec would be released during the first half of 2008. The new spec will add a second fiber-optic channel to compliment USB 2.0's copper channel, boosting "data transfer rates more than 10 times" while maintaining backwards compatibility. That should finally put the old Firewire/USB argument to rest but don't throw out those Firewire 800 cables yet--though the spec is expected next year, USB 3.0 devices probably won't become commonplace until 2009 or 2010.

For more on the coming spec:
- see this Crave article