SuperSpeed USB 3.0 spec officially released : It's fast

It's been nearly a year since we first saw the USB 3.0 connector make an appearance at CES, and after months of corporate infighting, spec-polishing, and technical navel-gazing, the future of consumer peripheral connectivity is here -- in the form of complete specifications and a demo. Symwave's giving attendees of this week's SuperSpeed conference a taste of tomorrow with a demo of the Quasar USB 3.0 chipset, which is targeted at "sync-and-go" devices like phones and media players. Sounds lovely -- now if you'll excuse us, we have to go back to mourning the death of FireWire 400.

The one bad bit of news is that your old USB cables won't deliver SuperSpeeds—you'll have to have USB 3.0 gear from end-to-end to get the ridiculous transfer rates because the cables have extra pins for data, though it is all backward compatible. On the cable front you've got three plugs: Standard A (which looks like the one you know and love), standard B (the square one), mini B (which looks like a bizarre double-headed monster) and micro. We should start seeing the first USB 3.0-equipped gadgets sometime in 2010, though maybe by the end of 2009 if we're lucky.

WARNING
High Speed USB product plugged into non-high speed port. Your device may not work properly...