Journal #12, November 16

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/11/superspeed-us-1.html

There was some big news last week. USB is now going to be over 10 times faster than it already is! I love USB and now 10 times faster, this is insane. We have already been able to install graphic intensive games onto a USB and play them on pretty much any computer. This new USB is version 3.0. Right now we have 2.0 and I guess some people can't handle transferring 25 GB in 13.9 minutes. Well with this update solves that problem so that transfer drops to 70 seconds.

http://thefutureofthings.com/news/5739/25gb-in-70-seconds-with-usb-3-0.html

With this speed boost comes other great add-ons as well. Now there is a power boost from 100 milliamps to 900 milliamps. Basically, this will be a tiny, tiny amount more for a power bill (overall you bill will be lowered due to the better organization), but charge your phone a whole lot faster. Also with this new 3.0 there is better power efficiency. This basically helps out the optimization of USB. One of the big drawbacks of USB 2.0 was the power consumption. In 2.0 the computer had to check constantly if a USB was connected. Now with 3.0 the computer doesn't have to check, the USB will send a signal, which will significantly lower power consumption.

Now don't get all crazy excited just yet. You won't be able to plug in 3.0 in your computer and experience the speed. You will only see this speed boost when going from a 3.0 device to a 3.0 device. Even when you get a shiny new computer (that supports USB 3.0) and shiny new operating system (that supports USB 3.0) your hard drive will still not be able to transfer 25 GB of data in 70 seconds. This is why I was going nuts in the beginning, because that is fast!

This update will not be available right away. It is still in production and should be available around the end of 2009 or the beginning of 2010. Oh, P.S. say goodbye to firewire. This makes me sad because firewire had such a cool ring to the name.