Toshiba announced two USB 3.0 accessories in its mobile lineup, a universal docking station and a 15.6-inch portable LED monitor. The dynadock U3.0 is a universal USB 3.01 docking station equipped with a total of six USB ports, four USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0. Two of the front ports allow users to charge other devices while the laptop is powered down, sleeping or undocked.
Confirming earlier reports, the USB Implementers Forum has made a formal announcement that Intel's upcoming Ivy Bridge chipset has received certification for USB 3.0. The confirmation notes that the company's i7-series chipsets will be capable of supporting up to four USB 3.0 ports.
HighPoint Technologies is now shipping a USB 3.0 card designed specifically for Mac Pros and OS X 10.7 Lion, the RocketU Dual USB 3 for Mac. The two-port PCI-E 2.0 card supports both single disk and RAID configurations (0, 1 and JBOD) and is optimized for USB 3 hard drives and SSDs. The card features dual type-A ports, is fully backward-compatible with USB 1.1 and USB 2 devices and can be installed into any free PCI-E slot.
Kingston has just unveiled the DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 USB flash drive. The fastest product of its kind from the company, it attains speeds of up to 225MBps when reading and 135MBps when writing thanks to its USB 3.0 technology and HyperX SSD. The drive is available in 64-, 128- and 256GB capacities.
DisplayLink, a chip maker which specializes in providing links between monitors and computers, demonstrated the first implementation of a USB 3.0 to HDMI graphics adapter. At the Intel Developer Forum (IDF), currently taking place, the company showed the simply titled USB 3.0 to HDMI adapter made by its partner Winstars. The adapter uses DisplayLink's DL-3500 chip.
The USB 3.0 Promoter Group on Wednesday added the USB On-the-Go (OTG) 3.0 and Embedded Host supplement to the USB 3.0 Specification. It allows compatible SuperSpeed USB portable devices to communicate without the need for a PC. They can act either as USB host or USB peripheral through the same connection.
Microsoft has finally demonstrated USB 3.0 compatibility for Windows 8. In the company's engineering blog, Windows team leader Steven Sinofsky pointed out the challenges in adopting the new standard without compromising compatibility with existing hardware and software built for the USB 2.0 protocol. The company worked to design a new USB software stack for the new controller, while retaining the existing software stack for older controllers.
Mac Pro accessory maker HighPoint Technologies is now offering a quad-port PCI-E 2.0 USB 3.0 RAID HBA called the RocketU designed specifically for Apple's high-end workstation. Each port is capable of the theoretical 5Gb per second performance for a combined theoretical throughput of 20Gb per second (real world use of USB 3.0 tends to be dramatically lower). The card supports both single disk and various RAID configurations including JBOD and RAIDs 0, 1, 5 and 10.
Photography accessory maker Phottix is offering a new, USB 3.0 (USB2 compatible) Turbo USB card reader that accepts a wide variety of cards in five main formats: Compact Flash (CF), xD, Memory Stick (MS), MultiMedia Cards (MMC) and Secure Digital (SD), as well as MicroSD. The plug-and-play device is compatible with Windows 2000 or later and Mac OS X. All five card slots can be used at the same time, according to the company.
The USB 3.0 Promoter Group just revealed it is working on a new power delivery spec for USB cable bus power that will deliver much more power for charging or powering electronics devices. The standard will exist alongside the USB Battery Charging 1.2 specification and deliver up to as much as 100W of power. It will also continue to work with USB 2.0 and original USB 3.0 standards as well as current cables and connectors.
AMD has introduced several new chipsets, including the 9-series for desktop configurations and Z-series for tablets. The 9-series is said to serve as the basis for the company's 'Scorpius' desktop platform, based on AM3+ socket processors such as the eight-core Zambezi. The platform will also integrate six USB 3.0 ports and Radeon HD6000 discrete graphics cards, while allowing users to connect up to four Radeon GPUs.
Lenovo sees USB 3.0 going mainstream in 2012. "In 2012 USB 3.0 will be a mainstream technology," Jason Parrish, worldwide product manager for Lenovo ThinkPad, told CNET. "And we see 2011 as the transition year for USB 3.0 as it starts to come into more and more products," he added. However, Parrish also believes that there will be a place for the Thunderbolt interface although it will likely appear only on high-end notebooks.
PC maker HP is, at least for the time being, choosing USB 3.0 over Thunderbolt, according to IDG News. "We did look at [Thunderbolt]. We're still looking into it. Haven't found a value proposition yet," says HP's worldwide marketing manager for desktops, Xavier Lauwaert. Whereas USB 3.0 is backwards-compatible with most USB devices, Thunderbolt is only compatible with native, PCIe and DisplayPort hardware.
I-O Data has quietly introduced an external hard drive, the HDCA-UT3.0K, with three terabytes of storage capacity. The drive is based on one drive, rather than using a multiple-disk configuration that is common to many high-capacity NAS systems. USB 3.0 support enables faster transfer speeds, though the drive is still backwards compatible with USB 2.0.
AMD has confirmed plans to offer several of its chipsets with USB 3.0 integration. The move is expected to provide momentum to USB 3.0 adoption among PC makers, as chipset integration eliminates the need for separate components to handle the newer standard. Market leader Intel, however, has yet to add the same capabilities to its chipsets.
Plextor has introduced its PX-LB950UE Blu-ray disc burner. The drive is one of the first external Blu-ray burners to feature superspeed USB3.0 and eSATA connections to maximize data transfer rates for fast reading and writing performance. It is capable of writing to double-layer discs with a maximum capacity of 50GB, which is the equivalent of 10 DVDs, 72 CDs or 9 hours of HD video.
A leaked presentation (below) may have confirmed that Intel's Panther Point chipset will finally add native USB 3.0 support. The presentation refers to the platform supporting as many as four of the ports at full speed with ten more supplying USB 2.0. A dedicated controller, the XHCI, would handle just the 3.0 jacks and would give each of them the full 5Gbps of bandwidth, preventing one from slowing down the other.
Freecom has unveiled the thinnest external hard drive on the market with the Mobile Drive Mg range. It is designed specifically to match Apple MacBooks, and is housed in a lightweight magnesium enclosure. The drive is just 10mm (0.39in) thick, earning it the claimed distinction of being the thinnest in the world.
Samsung has announced two new portable drive lines and one desktop external hard drive line for the consumer market. The new drives use the USB 3.0 interface, which can provide data transfer rates up to five gigabits per second. Samsung's premium portable drives offer up to 1TB storage capacity, 256-bit hardware based encryption, and can perform automatic or continuous backup. The premium portable drives also ship with software to perform encrypted backups. The drives will be available in Onyx black, Sapphire blue, and Coral pink.
LaCie has introduced a new USB hub, the Hub4, designed for USB 3.0-equipped computers. The hub integrates four USB 3.0 ports, supporting combined speeds of up to 5Gbps when connected to a single USB 3.0 port on a computer. Users can also connect via USB 2.0, but at the slower 480Mbps data transfer speeds.
LaCie today merged SSDs with flash drives in the FastKey. It uses the USB 3.0 interface to deliver transfer speeds as fast as 260MBps, or up to 100 times faster than average USB 2.0 drives. A mix of the interface, flash drive design and DRAM cache gives the drive its speed edge.
Western Digital today unveiled three additions to its external drive line. An updated My Passport Essential is Western Digital's smallest portable drive, and has a storage capacity of 500GB with USB 3.0 new to the group. The My Passport Essential SE portable drive comes in either 750GB or 1TB capacity and also uses USB 3.0. The My Book Essential desktop external drive also now reaches 3TB with the faster speed intact.
Iomega will soon release upgraded eGo USB 3.0 portable hard drives. Sporting an interface that's about 10 times faster than the older USB 2.0 standard, the drives are rare as they won't cost any more than their older, slower counterparts. Each has AES 256-bit hardware encryption and can withstand seven-foot drops thanks to a bundled Power Grip Band and skip protection in the drives themselves.
Gaming PC maker iBuyPower announced on Tuesday that it will offer USB 3.0 ports on all of its desktop PCs free of charge. This includes systems that do not have USB 3.0-compatible mainboards. The upgrade will let users transfer data at up to 5Gbps, or about 10 times faster than USB 2.0.
Apple's rumored desktop Mac refresh may come as soon as tomorrow if a hint is any indication. Historically accurate John Gruber implied in the notice for a new podcast episode that the new iMacs, new Mac Pros and a 27-inch Cinema Display could all be available on Tuesday. The details are few but are expected, as the iMac would be a "speed-bump" while the display would have the same 16:9 ratio screen as the 27-inch iMac.
Recent word of thinning Mac Pro supply has been joined today by secondary reports of the iMac now facing similar shortages. Customers trying to reserve the all-in-one for an in-store pickup are finding some 21-inch and 27-inch models listed as "unavailable." The voided stock is considered a likely sign by AppleInsider and others that Apple is readying for new models expected soon.
LaCie has added the Rugged USB 3.0 external hard drive to its lineup, offering 110MBps practical transfer speeds, or about three times faster than current USB 2.0 drives. The drive gets its power from the USB 3.0 connection as well, and is offered in a 500GB capacity. The USB 3.0 connection is backwards-compatible with USB 2.0 ports.
Samsung today refreshed its STORY Station external hard drives to add a full USB 3.0 interface. The 3.5-inch external hard drive will bring peak transfer speeds of about 5Gbps, or about 10 times faster than the common USB 2.0 standard. Like most drives of its type, it still works on USB 2.0 and 1.1 ports at their slower maximum speeds.
Intel's upcoming Light Peak standard could take over from USB 3.0, company senior fellow Kevin Kahn said today at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing. The 10Gbps peripheral standard was technically built to link up other standards but was seen by Kahn as possibly replacing 5Gbps USB 3.0 altogether in the next few years. He went so far as to treat Light Peak as a finality that may replace any other standard in the future.
ASUS this week let it be known that it will soon release a whole range of products with integrated USB 3.0 connections. This lineup will include 15 mainboards, its N-series of multimedia notebooks, the Eee Box 1510U and 1210U desktop PCs as well as the Eee PC 1018, 1015 and 1016 netbooks. More products, including digital media players, are also due in the future. The company has also developed a PCIe x4 bridge chip that will allow owners of older ASUS mainboards to add USB 3.0 support.
Super Talent has introduced SuperCrypt, a new USB 3.0 drive with AES hardware encryption. The new USB drive offers transfer speeds of up to 240MBps and is backwards compatible with USB 2.0 ports, albeit at the necessarily slower speeds. Two different AES encryption options are offered for the drive, one of which is 128-bit ECB encryption which comes with the regular SuperCrypt, while the other 256-bit XTS encryption is available for the SuperCrypt Pro.
ASUS is quietly showing off the latest addition to its O!Play range of networked HD multimedia players with the O!Play HD2 at the CeBIT show in Germany. Specs are non-existent, though the photo reveals there is a USB 3.0 port on the front of the device. Alongside it is an eSATA connection and memory card slots.
Belkin has expanded its product lineup with several peripherals that support the new USB 3.0 standard. Two are expansion cards, the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 PCIe Add-In Card for desktops, and the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ExpressCard adapter for laptops. Belkin has also unveiled two USB 3.0-compliant cables, the SuperSpeed A-B Cable and the SuperSpeed Premium Micro-B Cable.
Active Media Products this week introduced two 2.5-inch external SSD drives with USB 3.0 connections. The Aviator-2 SuperSpeed SSDs are said to have performance theoretically four times faster than hard drives that rely on the USB 2.0 connection and has the headroom of the spec's full 4.8Gbps. Residing inside the USB 3.0 Aviator-2 case is Active's 64GB or 128GB Predator X7 SSD, which are rated at transfer speeds of up to 200MBps.
NEC today said it has developed a new chipset whose bus speeds could more than triple the speed of USB 3.0. By adding a delay to the feedback signal that becomes linked to the data rate, the company says it has conquered the interference that plagues very high speed data and provided considerably more headroom. It expects that USB 3.0 or a similar technology could reach 16Gbps, or about 3.3 times faster than the peak 5Gbps of the official spec.
Super Talent has expanded its line of USB storage drives with the USB 3.0 Express Drive. The new device supports speeds of up to 125MBps, enabling users to transfer large quantities of data in a relatively short periods of time. It comes in both 16GB and 32GB capacities and is compact enough to fit in a user's pocket. In addition to USB 3.0 support, the drive is also backwards compatible with all USB 2.0 ports.
Super Talent has unveiled a new USB powered RAID storage system at CES, the RAIDDrive USB 3.0. The device offers transfer speeds over 300MBps when used with USB 3.0 supported systems -- five times the speed of USB 2.0 -- and is also backwards compatible with earlier USB ports. It should nonetheless be reliable, keeping data for 10 years or more, and uses a special USAP transfer protocol which is said to offer additional speed enhancements through bi-directional data transfers.
LaCie has announced the Rugged USB 3.0 external storage and two USB flash drives, the CooKey and WhizKey. The Rugged drive features the latest USB 3.0 interface, with data transfer rates claimed to reach up to 110MB/s. The company has yet to announced capacities for the updated version, although the current USB 2.0 model is available with 250GB, 320GB or 500GB hard drives.
Western Digital today shipped its fastest My Book external hard drive, featuring the USB 3.0 interface, which is 10 times faster than the previous-generation USB 2.0 interface. According t the company, the "SuperSpeed" USB 3.0 interface on My Book 3.0 drives provides transfer rates of up to 5 gigabits-per-second, allowing users to open and save files up to 4.7 times faster than USB 2.0. In addition, the drive is compliant with the USB-IF SuperSpeed USB 3.0 standard to provide compatibility with other USB 3.0, USB 2.0 products, and USB 1.1 products.
PQI chose to be one of the pioneers of USB 3.0 on Tuesday and added a new entry to its Cool Drive thumb drives. The U366 takes advantage of the 3.0 spec's 5Gbps peak bandwidth to perform at speeds well above those possible with USB 2.0. With peak read speeds of 97MB per second, the storage stick has performance closer to desktop hard drives while consuming the same space as a regular removable USB drive.
Japan's Buffalo on Wednesday introduced its Express Card USB 3.0 adapter, the IFC-EC2U3/UC, that will bring the 5Gbps transfer speeds of the new standard to notebook users. The 34mm card has two external USB 3.0 ports that will also be backwards compatible with USB 2.0 devices.
Buffalo Technology has introduced the DriveStation HD-HXU3, a new series of external hard drives featuring USB 3.0 interfaces. The high speed connection option is claimed to support transfer rates of up to 625MB/s, beating USB 2.0 and even FireWire by a considerable margin. Users can still connect using the current USB standard, however the transfer rates drop to approximately 480Mb/s.
Germany's Sharkoon is coming out with a USB 3.0 hard drive dock that allows users to plug in any IDE or SATA hard drives and transfer data through a fast USB 3.0 connection. The Quickport Combo is an upright drive station that can support 2.5- and 3.5-inch IDE or SATA hard drives as well as optical 5.25-inch IDE drives. SATA hard drives can be plugged directly into the top-facing dock, while IDE devices are connected via the dedicated front connector.
Intel has postponed its support of USB 3.0 until 2011, a new report claims. The information is said to come from a senior technology manager at a "top tier PC maker," who says that Intel chipset teams are more focused on supporting the current Nehalem platform, as well as transitioning to 5GHz PCIe 2.0. "They need to prioritize their time and resources on a whole host of things and have to consider the compelling needs for USB 3.0 now versus 18 months later," says the manager.
Dane-Elec has announced a series of external hard drives, the So SuperSpeed HDDs and SSDs, that will support the upcoming USB 3.0 standard. The drives will provide data transfer speeds of up to 250MBps, which is roughly ten times the rate available in current USB 2.0 devices. The So SuperSpeed drives consist of USB 3.0 HDDs which range in capacity of 500GB to 2TB and come in 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch formats, along with 80GB and 160GB SSDs that have been re-branded as Intel M-25 drives.
Point Grey has provided additional details regarding its USB 3.0-connected HD video camera that will be making an appearance at the Intel Developers Forum. The camera prototype integrates a 3-megapixel CMOS sensor manufactured by Sony. The sensor allows the camera to output raw, uncompressed 1080p images at 60 frames per second.
A variety of USB 3.0 demonstrations have been planned for the Intel Developer Forum scheduled next week, according to CNET News. Grey Point Research will bring one of its prototype cameras with a 3-megapixel Sony CMOS sensor. The camera will stream uncompressed 1080p video at 60fps to a laptop outfitted with a SuperSpeed USB ExpressCard from Fresco Logic.
The next-generation USB 3.0 interface may reach customer PCs before 2009 is out, despite an earlier report to the contrary. Industry members believe Taiwan-area PC makers will be the first to release computers equipped with USB 3.0, as working prototypes of the interface, which promises 5GBps transfer speeds, are abundant at computer technology shows. These included PC hosts transferring data to connected external SSDs and interoperability between components from different vendors.
