Universal Serial Bus (USB)
Short for Universal Serial Bus, an external bus standard that supports data transfer rates of 12 Mbps. A single USB port can be used to connect up to 127 peripheral devices, such as mice, modems, and keyboards. USB also supports Plug-and-Play installation and hot plugging.
Starting in 1996, a few computer manufacturers started including USB support in their new machines. It wasn’t until the release of the best-selling iMac in 1998 that USB became widespread. It is expected to completely replace serial and parallel ports.
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Also referred to as Hi-Speed USB, USB 2.0 is an external bus that supports data rates up to 480Mbps. USB 2.0 is an extension of USB 1.1. USB 2.0 is fully compatible with USB 1.1 and uses the same cables and connectors. Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Lucent, Microsoft, NEC and Philips jointly led the initiative to develop […]
- USB 3.0
Also called SuperSpeed USB, USB 3.0 is the latest version of the Universal Serial Bus external bus standard that supports data transfer rates of up to and beyond 5GB/s (gigabytes per second). In addition to the increase in speed, UBS 3.0 is also optimized for low power and improved protocol efficiency. USB 3.0 ports and […]
- USB Flash Drive Alliance
The USB Flash Drive Alliance is a consortium of technology companies launched to educate consumers about the exceptional portability, capacity and utility of USB flash drives.
- USB OTG (On-The-Go)
Short for USB On-The-Go, an extension of the USB 2.0 specification for connecting peripheral devices to each other. USB OTG products can communicate with each other without the need to be connected to a PC. For example, a digital camera can connect to a PDA, or a mobile phone can connect to a printer or […]
- USB boot
Using USB devices, such as a flash drive to boot a Windows PC. Windows XP Embedded Service Pack 2 Feature Pack 2007 introduced a new embedded enabling Feature called USB Boot. This allows users to build a Windows XPe image that boots from a USB flash drive.