USB 3.0 next year – 10x the speed

[photo courtesy of CNET]

Intel has announced that it will introduce USB 3.0 next year, a standard that should be ten times faster than USB 2.0. Intel says that the speed boost is made possible by using fiber-optics in addition to the regular wires. And yes, the USB 3.0 port will be backwards-compatible with current USB ones. If Intel knows one thing, it’s that backwards-compatibility is key to evolving technology.

Current hard-drives, mouse and printers are probably too limited to make use of the new 4.8 Gigabit/sec bandwidth, but we could use the bandwidth to transport HD video signals and other intensive data migration.

Although USB 3 should work in 2008, it will take a couple more years to develop products.