Hasta La Gadget!

USB support organization, the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF)–a group made up of such notables as Apple, Intel, Microsoft, and HP–announced today that it was making available the Compliance and Certification Program for USB 3.0 or SuperSpeed USB.

Interested companies can register for testing by filling out the Platform Interoperability Lab certification request form on USB-IF’s site. Those products that pass the testing will be included on the organization’s Integrators List of certified SuperSpeed USB products, itself available trhough the USB.org site. Licensing rights will then be made available to the official SuperSpeed USB logo.

According to the organization, USB 3.0 is expected to grab 30 percent of the USB market share by 2013. Says USB-IF president Jeff Ravencraft:

The availability of the Compliance and Certification program is a significant milestone, and means consumers are one step closer to seeing certified SuperSpeed USB products on store shelves. When consumers see the SuperSpeed USB logo, they will have the assurance that the product interoperates with existing USB 2.0 products and provides all the speed and power efficiency enhancements that SuperSpeed USB offers, while continuing the ease-of-use consumers have come to expect from USB.

We’ve seen cables, controllers, drivers and years of promises, and it looks like we now finally have some pictures of the first official USB 3.0 motherboard out in the wild. That milestone comes courtesy of ASUS, which looks to have gone all out (or as far out as motherboards can go) with its new P6X58 Premium model. As you can see above, it packs a pair of easily identifiable USB 3.0 ports and three standard USB 2.0 ports, along with accommodations for a Core i7 processor, six DDR3 memory slots, three PCI-Express 2.0 slots, and plenty of other standard fare. Still no word on a price or release date, unfortunately, and the folks at Xfastest unsurprisingly weren’t able to provide any benchmarks or the like, considering that there isn’t much in the way of actual USB 3.0 gear to test it with just yet.

[Via Everything USB]

Filed under: Desktops

ASUS P6X58 Premium motherboard arrives complete with USB 3.0 ports originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The first USB 3.0 host controller is expected to spur the availability of USB 3.0 products.

NEC Electronics has taken the first step towards general availability of devices based on USB 3.0, the next generation standard that is expected to offer a ten-fold speed increase over the current USB 2.0.

The company introduced the first USB 3.0 host controller chip for PCs and other digital devices in a move that will help bring the technology closer to market.

NEC’s µPD720200 chip can support USB data transfer speeds of up to 5 gigabits per second (Gbps) and will be fully backward compatible with earlier versions of the USB standard, says the company.

The launch of the chip comes nearly six months after the USB Implementers Forum finalized the specifications for the USB 3.0 standard. The new standard also allows for greater power output, which means more devices can be charged faster via USB.

Since its introduction in 1996, USB has changed the way we interact with our digital devices, allowing them to be truly plug-and-play. In 2007, more than 2.6 billion USB-enabled devices were shipped in 2007, estimates research firm In-Stat, with nearly four billion expected to ship by 2012.

NEC says it expects the market for USB 3.0 products to expand significantly in 2010. Samples of its µPD720200 host controller will be available starting June priced at $15 each. NEC expects monthly production of the chips to reach approximately one million units in September.

See also:
USB 3.0 to Deliver Tenfold Speed Increase

Photo: NEC Electronics

Here you go, the first USB 3.0 cable that we’re aware of has gone on sale over at USBfever. Interestingly, the cable’s feature list says, “it is 10 times faster than USB 2.0.” Sure, as long as it’s hooked up to a USB 3.0 SuperSpeed host which it won’t be until 2010. USBfever: So hot we’re hallucinating.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

USB 3.0 cables go on sale one year early originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Apr 2009 07:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This question came in from reader Steven Feldman:

Hi, just a question about USB 3.0. I am going to be purchasing a laptop in the next few months… I have been waiting because I want to get a SSD (solid state drive) in the laptop that can hold 256GB minimum for a reasonable price, but that is a story in itself. I have recently been reading about USB 3.0 technology being developed, and if I buy a laptop soon, I don’t think I can upgrade it to USB 3.0 from 2.0 without replacing the motherboard.

I read online that products will be coming out for USB 3.0 in Q4 of 2009, but I don’t care about the products; what I do care about is when laptops will be able to support the USB 3.0 technology. When are motherboards for laptops going to have USB 3.0 support in them?

See executive editor Jeremy Kaplan’s answer after the jump.