Maybe this news is one reason why the new Apple MacBook range have ditched FireWire? If this news is to be taken at face value the forthcoming USB 3.0 specification will frankly leave it for dust. Dubbed SuperSpeed, the new USB standard consumes less power than FireWire, while allowing more power to be sent to the attached device, which may lead to more external devices not requiring a power supply. With USB 3.0, 1GB of data will be transferred in a blistering 3.3 seconds at full theoretical speed, with a USB 2.0 flashdrive only managing the same in around 33secs. USB 3.0 is going to be backwards compatible with USB 2.0 but obviously not at the new speed, which I guess means we are sticking with the same connector. Still, this seems like good news for those of us left drumming our fingers on the desk while our USB 2.0 devices struggle to copy large files between drives, although USB has never been that great at sustained data rates. Perhaps we will see some hot-diggetty audio and video interfaces coming to match the new specification just released by the USB 3.0 Standards Group. Expect to see controllers (chipsets) coming first in 2009 with actual devices rolling out through 2010. Microsoft, Texas Instruments, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, NEC, and NXP Semiconductors are all currently signed up to support the new SuperSpeed USB. - Wait, where's Apple? Interest is obviously high as the USB site is running a snails pace - hopefully this is not a portent of things to come..

• USB.org

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