USB 3.1 Doubles Down 10GB/s Speeds And Other GoodIes News

Expect your Super Speed connections to get even, um, speedier next year, which is when the USB-IF is predicting the first USB 3.1 devices to emerge. USB 3.1 essentially doubles the speed of USB 3.0 from 5Gb/s to 10Gb/s while offering backward compatibility. Since native support in Intel and AMD’s chipset aren’t expected immediately, motherboards and notebooks will instead inte- grate USB 3.1 discrete chips for support. In press demos, USB 3.1 devices are already hitting speeds in excess of 800MB/s. By the time the tech is available next fall, the USB-IF thinks speeds above 1GB/s should be attainable. Thunderbolt 2 wasn’t the only connection being used to stream 4K; USB 3.1 was also demonstrated streaming 4K video— albeit compressed—using a DisplayLink connection. That’s not all. The USB-IF hopes the first devices with Power Delivery support will debut next year. USB Power Delivery devices will support universal charging through a USB port delivering up to 100 watts. In stark contrast to today’s maddening array of proprietary power bricks, your next laptop could charge through a standard USB 3.1, USB 3.0, or USB 2.0 connector, much the same way you can charge your phone through any Micro USB plug (well, except for Apple’s, of course.) The USB-IF is also working on a new Media Agnostic USB (MA USB) that combines WiGig, Wi-Fi, and WiMedia Ultra-Wideband radios. MA USB is essentially a reboot of the not-so-popular Certified Wireless USB. MA USB will allow short-range wireless connectivity over everything from the 60GHz spectrum to existing 2.4GHz spectrum—all using the USB protocol.