New USB 3.0 Lets Devices Link to Each Other Without PCs

The SuperSpeed USB 3.0 has already gained speed, but it may gain even more of an advantage once the USB 3.0 Promoter Group finishes their latest pet project.

SuperSpeed USB 3.0 is the most recent iteration of the Universal Serial Bus standard and has a theoretical maximum transfer rate of 5 Gbps (4.8 Gbps).

It has already gained native chipset support on some motherboards and has more or less made it into every recent desktop and notebook.

Still, there is always room for improvement, and the USB 3.0 promoter group intends to prove, and live up to, this mantra.

Apparently, what the group now wants is to make the specification even more versatile by removing the need for a PC.

What this means is that, with the USB On-The-Go (OTG) spec, any electronic devices with USB connectivity will be able to directly link to each other.

This will mostly benefit such things as phones, cameras and other items that have their own user interfaces, while flash drives and other storage units will, obviously, not be able to do much on their own.

OTG and Embedded Host Devices, which need fast synchronization or streaming of rich data, will, likewise, draw great benefits form this technology.

“The USB 3.0 promoter group continues to optimize its specifications in order to meet the evolving requirements of the industry,” said Brad Saunders, the chairman of USB 3.0 promoter group.

“The availability of the USB On-The-Go 3.0 and Embedded Host supplement addresses the industry’s need to transfer rich data using fast synch-n-go mobile devices."

The USB OTG 3.0 and Embedded Host supplement will, as a bonus, come with power saving benefits and has backwards compatibility with USB OTG 2.0.

What remains is to see how long products with this capability built into them will take before finally making their debut in force.