USB 3.0 Sockets and Jacks Shape Made Public

Not to anyone’s surprise…the USB 3.0 jacks and sockets look exactly the same.  Go figure, as part of the specification is to be backward compatible.  But taking a closer look, you do see some differences.

The folks from Register Hardware had a peak at the USB 3.0 connectors while at CES 2008 this year.  As you can see from the image below, the USB 3.0 sockets have an additional row of connectors.  The connectors located in front are to keep the backward compatibility to USB 1.1 and USB 2.0.  The connectors placed behind this first row are for USB 3.0.

The new USB 3.0 specification is promising transfer speeds 10 times greater than current 2.0 standards – to that of 4.7Gb/s.  There is also a fiber optics connector which hasn’t been made available yet.

As the USB 3.0 specification is expected to be finalized sometime in June of 2008 – we can expect to see product following by the end of this year.  Although I am looking forward to the new, faster USB 3.0 spec, not everyone shares the same love.  Here is what some are saying:

“David” How about a second power connector, and when a device connects it would be able to request any voltage up to 12V on each of the two connectors, up to a maximum of say 3A. That way most peripherals could be powered by the Host PC

“Rob” I dispute that USB is “a load of crap”. I say it’s a resounding success. My reasoning is easy to follow:  1. Every computer I’ve used this century has had USB  2. Every USB device I’ve used has worked

“A”  I am not sure…but I think Microsoft will not support USB 3.0 Without their software support, it is a mystery how successful this technology will be popular…

Source:  Register Hardware.  Other USB 3.0 News.