USB 3.0 - Wireless?

If you’re a regular reader of Dev Hardware, you might remember my article on wireless USB, which is similar to Bluetooth. What ever happened to that? Wasn’t that supposed to be the next USB? I would think that would make sense because wireless is the new thing right now. 

Well it hasn’t exactly had a great introduction to the public. The reviews I have seen for devices with a wireless USB connection have been lackluster. All pose problems regarding the connection speed and reliability of wireless USB. There are hardly any devices that support wireless USB. It seems like all short distance wireless connection is going to be done via Bluetooth and it looks like USB 3.0 is going to be the next generation of USB connection.

Conclusion

The next version of USB is coming soon. This is a great new thing, but it isn’t revolutionary by any means. Heck, you might not even know when it's released because it will probably look the same as USB 2.0, albeit with radical changes. The new speed should be 10 times as fast as USB 2.0 and still offer backwards compatibility with USB 2.0 and 1.1. It also promises to be more energy efficient and effective, though no information has been released on how this might be accomplished.

This should be a great upgrade for external hard drives because the faster speeds will make big backups much quicker. This new technology won’t be seen in computers for almost two years now and it still hasn’t been officially released, but the prototypes look very promising. The wireless USB I was hoping to see has been a dud since being launched and doesn’t look like it will make any kind of noticeable impact. As it stands, USB 3.0 is the future, and the future looks very promising.