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Have you seen the new USB 3.1 'SuperSpeed'
cables yet? Finally, both ends of the cable can be identical ('Type-C')
so you don't need to have a special adapter to connect between dissimilar types. Another bonus is that there is
no 'up' and 'down' orientation because the pinouts are symmetrical. In an apparent violation of the law of averages
there seems to be a much greater than 50% probability of attempting to plug existing USB connectors in upside down
on the first attempt - for either end. To make matters worse, I have mistakenly plugged the squarish end of the
peripheral device end into the telephone jack hole of a printer where the metal shield can short out the telephone
connector contacts.
As if an agnostic connector isn't enough to wow you, a new mode enables transfer speeds up to 10 Gbps, and
the software standard is compatible back to USB 2.0. USB 3.1 can also deliver up to 100 W of power
(a 10x increase over USB 3.0) to a peripheral device, which per Ohm's law translates
to 20 A at the 5 V bus specification, but I can only find 900 mA in the specification. It's got to
be in there somewhere, though, because all the news reports say so, including this
USB.org 3.1
release. This USB
Power Delivery spec mentions that the VBus voltage will be 20 V @ 5 A for high power suppply.
According to industry sources, the new Apple MacBook will be the first product to incorporate the new standard.
Posted on March 30, 2015
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