Unveiled on Monday by the USB Implementers Forum, the USB 3.0 spec
can theoretically support data-transfer speeds of up to 4.8Gbps — 10
times the speed provided by USB 2.0.

The new standard, also known as SuperSpeed USB, is also expected to be more power-efficient than its predecessor.

"SuperSpeed
USB is the next advancement in ubiquitous technology," Jeff Ravencraft,
the president of the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), the industry
group that promotes USB technology, said in a statement on Monday.
"Today's consumers are using rich media and large digital files that
need to be easily and quickly transferred from PCs to devices and vice
versa. SuperSpeed USB meets the needs of everyone, from the tech-savvy
executive to the average home user."

The USB-IF hopes
USB 3.0 will be built into computers from late 2009, with consumer
products using the specification starting to appear the following year
— or roughly a decade after USB 2.0 made its appearance. According to
the industry group, the first such products will include external hard
drives, flash drives, digital cameras and personal media players.

The specification was designed to be backwards-compatible with earlier iterations of USB.

Companies
that were instrumental in developing USB 3.0 include Intel, HP,
Microsoft, ST-NXP Wireless, NEC and Texas Instruments. Intel had taken
the lead in the specification's development, but only made a draft specification available
to companies such as AMD and Nvidia in August of this year. Prior to
that release, there had been concerns that the USB 3.0 specification
would be forked into divergent versions.