HP’s all in one TouchSmart 520 PC has 2 USB 3.0 Ports included in a beautiful, single unit touchscreen PC.

It has a BluRay burner, which is pretty cool too.  So HP beats Apple in features here. Read the PCWorld Review article here.

ADATA now waterproofed USB drives, so you can carry these around when you go scuba diving or stir your coffee with them.

You should note that the top speeds of these USB 3.0 drivers is 100 MB per second.

Top USB 2.0 speeds are 35 MB per second. Top USB 3.0 speeds are 350MB per second.

The ADATA speed is still 3x the speed of USB 2.0 which is definitely faster.  The speed limiting factor is actually the flash memory. It uses memory more expensive than memory found in today’s USB 2.0 drives, but still slower than needed to get the fastest USB 3.0 speeds.  Just keep this in mind.

The Kindle & USB – Viewer Mail

Ned writes in “"Interesting blog about the Kindle Fire and iPad.  I can’t, however, figure out what it has to do with USB…”

(Ned isn’t his real name.)

I’m glad you asked this question Ned.

This Tablet, the Kindle has only one wired interface, it’s USB 2.0.  It’s used for both charging and for content transfer.

For example, If you keep your music in the “Amazon Cloud” you can download via WiFi.

But, most people (I think) already have their entire MP3 library on a USB hard drive or a PC or both somewhere.

So it’s a lot faster to plug your Kindle Fire into a laptop or PC, and transfer all your Britney Spears and Rihanna music to your device.

You could upload your music to the Amazon Cloud, or even the Apple iCloud.  You’d then have access anywhere. And you could stream to your device.

Of course you need Wi-Fi or Broadband access to download these items.  So you still want to download with USB 2.0.

Why do you care?

Well, you’ll still need to charge your device now and in 2014.

And you’ll have even more content.

And you might not be willing to pay for a huge “cloud” to store all your data.

Are you going to trust all your kid’s photos to a single, on-line storage facility at Amazon or Apple?

Will you pay $500 a year for the storage, when a USB 3.0 drive costs only $100?

No.

You buy 2 USB 3.0 hard drives. You store your stuff there, and keep a small amount on the cloud.

So you will have USB 2.0 now and USB 3.0 soon on all your tablets and smart phones so you can keep carrying around a gazillion videos you recorded, pictures you took, and movies/TV shows you want to watch.

Kindle Fire TechRepublic Teardown

Here’s a picture from the TechRepublic teardown of the Kindle Fire.

It’s interesting to me because the RAM chip is mounted directly on top of the TI OMAP 4430 chip underneath.  As a digital guy I don’t know why someone does this, except to improve performance, and maybe lower power required.  Someone send me an e-mail to explain why or post a comment below.

You will see the TI OMAP 4430 actually appears to have 2 USB controllers.

One is an HSOTG port on the top right.

The other is in the bottom left, and looks like a USB 2.0 Host controller.

The new OMAP 5 platform as has 1 USB DRD port and 3 USB 3.0 ports. Block diagram and description can be seen here in my earlier blog entry on OMAP 5 and Tablets.

So TI’s already moving the next platform onto USB 3.0, so in 2 years we would see TI OMAP tablets with USB 3.0.

Donut

Post your questions in the comments below (or send me e-mails)

And here’s today’s Donut.

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More USB 3.0

The USB-IF reported this week that 237 USB 3.0 products have certified.

First, This is Awesome.

237 products easily supports hundreds of millions of USB 3.0 products

Second, We need More.

Until now, SuperSpeed USB 3.0 certification has not been superspeedy.

Why?

1) Mostly to keep the quality of the USB 3.0 certified products at a high level
2) To make sure 3.0 works with 2.0

Certification tests had to be done at:

1) The USB-IF labs in Oregon or
2) at Quarterly USB-IF Plugfest held in Hawaii, Taiwan, or California.

I wish I could have gone to Hawaii. I’ve never been to Hawaii.

The Great Improvement is:

The USB-IF now says:
1) Take your USB 3.0 Device (peripheral) and have pre-testing done at a 3rd Party lab.
2) The USB-IF lab spot checks the results, and certifies the products officially.

This increases Certification throughput capacity by probably 10-20x.

So, thousands of USB 3.0 certifications can begin.

More USB 3.0

Asmedia and Etron have both announced they have USB 3.0 Host Certifications.

These companies join TI, Fresco, and NEC discrete Host providers.

This should keep the cost of Host implementations down

In fact, Global Sources says,

“Material overhead declined in the past months, thus pushing down USB 3.0 cable quotes. Host controller spending slipped to as low as $2 from $7 to $9 in 2008. This reduced cable rates by $0.50 to $1 compared with six months ago. The variant is still three or four times more expensive than USB 2.0 types, but prices are forecast to drop further”

Most new laptops have USB 3.0 as a standard feature (maybe not the cheapest laptops).

H.264 over USB

The USB-IF also released a new standard that allows for H.264 over USB.  It’s always been possible, this just standardizes it and makes it easier.  Read the press release here.

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So you’ve heard about tablets, the fact that Apple didn’t launch their iPad at CES, everyone is gunning for Apple’s iPad, the Blackberry, Sony, Samsung,… tablet will be famous, and every single article that was written said “Apple iPad” in it.

This isn’t about that.

I went to the HiSense booth at CES 2011, and saw their excellent 3D TVs.  HiSense is a China based TV maker.  More importantly, if you look at this picture there are 4 USB ports.

Yes, 4 ports.

I’ve seen HiSense TVs in China with a single Device and a single Host port. 

What would you use 4 ports for?

1) Webcam for video conferencing

2) WiFi dongle for connecting your TV to the internet (although I think WiFi will be standard in TVs pretty soon)

3) USB Hard Drive to record TV programs.

4) Connect to a USB Flash Drive or Digital Camera to view pictures.

For Video Conferencing, I’m reliably informed that Panasonic and Toshiba demonstrated this with at CES 2011.  This year, they did it again.  Panasonic had an integrated webcam, but Toshiba, Samsung, (and I think Sony) all demonstrated Skype Video conferencing on their big screen TVs.  Samsung’s webcam wasn’t available for sale, but it uses USB and will be available later according to the booth person I talked to.  The webcam at the Toshiba booth used USB in the picture below.

In case, you missed it, you can load Apps on your TV now.  In addition to Skype, there’s Facebook, Twitter, Google Talk and probably more.  The Samsung demo of Skype below shows the interface and in the upper right you can see the symbols next to “Be Updated with Friends”.

Now I just need to make some Friends.

So I’m waiting for the iPod Touch 4th generation.  Lots of reports now on the next generation one,  here’s one more article at PC World

New BlackBerry Curve (with faster USB 2.0)

In the meantime, my company (Synopsys) has issued me the new BlackBerry Curve which comes pre-installed with an MMC (Multi-Media Card) of 1GB.  In replaced it with 8GB MMC card, formatted it in the new BlackBerry, and I have a full 8 GB worth of space for holding files (data, music, video).  I can now use the BlackBerry as a portable USB Flash drive, music player, video player, camera, and video camera.  8 GB enough space to carry a backup of critical files and some music.  For the new BlackBerry, I also noticed that the USB Transfer time is much, much faster than my old BlackBerry.  Closer to proper USB 2.0 speeds.  This speaks to the variability in systems of USB 2.0 implementations.  Cheap IP, cheap controllers or PHYs can lead to a real drag on USB performance.  For example, If the USB eye for the PHY is bad, the speed can drop dramatically.  

BlackBerry with micro-B

Many cameras still use the original mini-B receptacles, and I have a dozen of these cables.   This BlackBerry uses the “new” micro-B receptacle, so I had to buy a some new cables on Amazon for $2 which actually includes shipping.  The micro-B is flatter than the mini-B, and was designed to work better with smaller form-factor mobile phones.  This is of course the USB 2.0 Micro-B

On the left here you can see the USB 2.0 connectors.

Standard Type A on your PC and Laptops.

Type B on your Printer or Scanner.

Mini-B on most cameras.

Micro-B on the new BlackBerrys and some mobile phones

This is the USB 3.0 Micro-B connector below.

The right side is the micro-B, and the left side of are the new USB 3.0 signals.

The Need for USB 3.0

I heard 2 stories in the last week:

1) The VP of Marketing at MCCI filled up his HD Camcorder with 32 GB of video from recordings of his son’s activities.  He had never transferred data off the Camcorder in the 9 months he had the recorder.  It took him over 1 hour (he stopped keeping track) to get the video off his Camcorder using USB 2.0.   USB 3.0 could do this in minutes.

2) One of our Director’s of Engineering filled up his 2 GB SD card with video.  He couldn’t couldn’t complete the transfer of the file to his laptop before his camera just stopped working.  I’m not sure why, but it still took a long, long time.  Even 2 GB takes several minutes.  He came to me with the epiphany, “I really need USB 3.0.”

I said, “Yeah, I know.”

Samsung demonstrated a USB only monitor at the Society for Information Display conference last week in Oregon.  The screen uses a forked USB 2.0 connector to provide the power necessary.  This is only possible because this is an edge-lit LED display.

The pictures and the full article are from TechOn here and in the link below

Also, at Everything USB, the author speculates that with USB 3.0 you could maybe use a single USB 3.0 port. I’ve run the math below and my commentary is at the end of this blog entry.

I should point out that some USB 2.0 devices pull more than the legal 500mA from a Host, and when they do, they violate the specification.

The interesting thing that TechOn reports that the display requires 6.3 W.  You can see from the calculations above, that 2 USB 2.0 ports will only generate about 5 W.  This means that either the actual average power requirement is much lower than 5W, or there is some power savings scheme on the screen when running on USB.   My hope is that displays would run at even lower power and could run off off a single USB 3.0 port.

Rate this blog below.  Because you love it (or find it mildly useful).

Apple says that 300,000+ iPads flew out it’s Apple Stores’ doors the first day.  Some analysts think that as many as 700,000 were sold in the first few days.

Stuff you’ve read and some you haven’t

1) In my opinion, we have never seen more, real excitement about a consumer product.  Only Game Consoles (PS3, XBox360, Nintendo Wii) elicit similar behavior.

My dad, who is more than 70 years old, lined up on Saturday morning to pick up his. He had ordered 2 different ones to make sure he would get his.  Up until Wednesday, he was trying to figure out if he needed a 16GB or 64GB version.  He sent us an e-mail from his iPad from the Apple Store.

2) High Attach Rate – Apple reports over 1 million apps downloaded and 250,000+ books.  With over 3000 available at launch.

iPhone/ iPod Touch Apps run out-of-the-box. so the thousands of apps already run on this platform.

iPad Apps will cost more than iPhone Apps which means that at $3 to $20, each App will bring in more money than the i Phone Apps.

3) If Apple achieves over 1 million users, which seems highly likely by the end of the year, they will have outpaced Google’s Android by leaps and bounds.  On top of this, Apple developers can use existing iPhone apps and with minor modifications re-build them specifically for the iPad.

4) The iPad will displace more Netbooks than Notebooks

Business people will still need Notebooks, but Netbook buyers will prefer the iPad for it’s interface, versatility, and ease-of-use.   Only the emerging economies and students will use Netbooks.  Only people getting Netbooks for free will use them.

5) The TouchScreen will be more commonplace on the notebook

Notebooks have become so cheap, that that the incremental cost of the touch screen will make that a standard feature.  People will be willing to pay for it.  Notebook makers will need to provide both to increase the value of the notebook and to make it sellable.  Also, the volumes of touchscreens should bring prices down.

6) USB is the only wired way to interface to the iPad.  But you knew that.

I’ve picked a few key videos, that I think you should watch.  Try to watch at least the first 2 videos.
Also, please rate this Blog entry below, in the bottom right.

This one talks about how the iPad is a game changer, I don’t agree on that it kills notebooks, but it definitely displaces Netbooks.

This one talks about Apps.  Look at the Zillow App about 2 min 14 sec into the video.

Here’s a Video Review from PCMagazine.  I like this one the best for completeness.

This is a bonus one that shows how a family would use this.

Rate me this blog below.

Cyberpower announced that USB 3.0 will be an option on all their Gamer Xtreme PCs.  This (to my knowledge) is the first PC company to announce support for USB 3.0.   I checked out the CyberPower website, and I found 13 models that let me pick USB 3.0 as a feature.   You can see the cheapest PC option here: CyberPower PC with USB 3.0 option. 

The most useful product I would like to buy is the Sharkoon SATA dock.  The will accept standard SATA drives and has a connector for a USB 3.0 or USB 2.0 cable. You can see the blue USB 3.0 receptacle in their marketing doc here: Sharkoon SATA QuickDock with USB 3.0,   The dock will retail for around $75.

GeekWarning: This saves us geeks money by allowing us to buy the cheapest, barebone, unpackaged SATA hard drives, and just plug it into the dock for when we need to do a back up.  We don’t need to speed the extra bucks for the fancy, ruggedized hard drives.  The geeks know what I’m talking about.

Otherwise, you can buy one of the other USB 3.0 storage devices listed below for yourself, your family, your friends… 

Sharkoon sells a matching USB 3.0 Host Card.  Of course, if you bought the CyberPower GamerXtreme and the QuickDock then you’d be all set for USB 3.0.

USB Co-Creator

Also, Conan O’Brian interviewed the Co-Creator of USB, Ajay Bhatt.  You saw an actor in original USB commercial.  You can see both the Interview and the Commercial and Engadget here:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/10/conan-obrien-talks-to-the-co-creator-of-usb-on-the-tonight-show/

Running list of USB 3.0 Products (with Links)

•PCs
–CyberPower Gamer Xtreme

•Motherboards
–ASUSP7P55D-E Premium,P6X58D Premium, P7H57D-V EVO
–Gigabyte – 7 models – GA-P55A-UD6, UD5, UD4P, UD3P, UD3R, UD3

•NEC Host in Add-In Cards/ExpressCards
–ASUS U3S6
–ECS
–Sharkoon

•Drives
–Buffalo HDD
–Dane-Elec HDD/SDD
–Active Media Aviator 312
–Freecom HDD
–SuperTalent Flash Drive
–Sharkoon SATA Dock

Sort of.

In a survey of 4,700 kids, then Nintendo Wii and DS are more loved than Oreo’s, MacDonald’s, and Kraft Mac and Cheese.  You can read the article here http://news.cnet.com/8301-10797_3-10371818-235.html.

Smarty Pants conducted the survey which confirms what parents of 6 to 12 year olds already know: Kids will give up food, exercise, sleep, and sunshine to spend time getting an artificial tan from a video display.

How does this relate to USB?

The Wii, PS2, PS3, and XBOX 360 all have USB ports.

The latest Rock Band game Beatles Rock Band includes the ability to sing a 3-part harmony while playing Lead Guitar, Bass Guitar, and Drums (or any combination).  You use your Wiimotes (Wii Wireless Remotes) plugged into the instruments.  (Official video of the game in action can be seen here http://www.thebeatlesrockband.com/videos/trailer)

But how do you connect the 3 microphones?  USB

I have 5 USB microphones from PS2 Karaoke games for the PS2 and PC Voice Recognition packages.  They all work on the Wii.  I use the same USB microphones on my PC, my PS2, and my Wii.  They were all designed and built over the past 8 years.  Awesome compatibility.

The Wii has only 2 USB ports, but I need 3 ports for my microphones. I took my USB 2.0 Hub connected to my PS2, and plugged it into the Wii.  Now I can plug 3 USB Microphones in, and sing three part harmonies with adults and elementary school kids (mine).

Backward and Forward compatibility is a foundation of USB success.  Seeing in non-PCs just makes it more cool.

Pick up Beatles Rock Band, and your 6 year old will be singing “She’s got a ticket to ride” during Art class too.

(By the way, check out the Smarty Pants Website http://www.asksmartypants.com/ it is beautifully designed website.)

(Only read this Sidenote if you plan to buy Beatles Rock Band:  I actually am using instruments from Guitar Hero World Tour.  This frees up a USB port because the Rock Band 2 instruments actually use a USB to Wireless Dongle to communicate with the Wireless Guitars and Drums.  In this way they take up USB ports, but do not use the Wiimotes inside the instruments.  You still need a USB 2.0 Hub, to connect 3 microphones.)

I’ve visited a lot of customers and potential customers over the past 10 years talking about USB 2.0 and now USB 3.0.  I have to say, that the longer USB 2.0 is around, the more designers come up with ways to use USB 2.0 in products. 

For example, in China 2 weeks ago I saw a TV with USB Host and Device Ports.  I’m guessing that the Device port was for connecting to a PC so you could upload stuff into the TV like music, pictures, or video.  I’m guessing because it looked like there were pre-loaded images that could be updated.  There weren’t any instructions on this model and the sales person didn’t speak English.  The Host port could be used for pictures and video from a USB flash drive.  This was clear from the information on the front of the TV showing JPEG and DIVX readability.  Of course, I’ve blogged about the fact that there are USB ports on mainstream Samsung and Sony TVs, but I think that having USB ports on standard definition TVs in China is different then having it on premium HD sets in Japan or the U.S..

For USB 3.0,  I expect exceptionally cool stuff.

The most interesting thing is that when I talk to some engineers, these engineers do not see the need for more memory, more speed, more storage.  It’s weird because these engineers (all over the world) adopt these devices at a slower rate than many.  But about 3 years ago, I noticed that everyone had a Blackberry on every flight I took (or so it seemed) and an iPod.  About 1 year ago, it seemed that every 3rd person on a Trans-Pacific flight had an iPhone.  People on domestic flights have a greater variety of phones like LG, Samsung, or other phones, but Blackberries and iPhones still predominate on domestic flights.

My point is simply this:

Companies like Apple (and it isn’t just Apple) continue to innovate and make use of the technology creatively to create new markets, better products using more memory, more features (capacitive touch screens), more speed (iPhone 3GS),  and more speed like USB 3.0.   The companies that really push for market presence and make the most dollars, adopt technology, and put it into great products to make fun stuff people buy.

I had a guy tell me that the iPhone was a “toy”   I now think, “Yes, that is exactly right”  If I don’t need a new phone, why do I buy a new one?  I use my discretionary dollars to buy a cool phone that can make calls, browse the web, or download a gizillion apps.   This is, in fact, the Holy Grail of products.  Sell the Hardware (make money), sell Songs (make money), sell Videos (make money), sell Educational videos (make money),  sell apps (make money).  It’s what Sony did with the PS2, Nintendo with the DS and Wii, and Microsoft with the XBOX 360.

Innovation around new technology drives new uses because creative, smart designers build great products.   I’m confident with the ecosystem of chips, software providers, IP providers, and the USB-IF, USB 3.0 will be driven by both the creative designers, and the fun-loving consumers that need it.

USB 2.0 is now 9 years old.  It’s awesome, it’s still getting new uses.  It’s time for USB 3.0.

Cheerleading is done, back to work.

Watch Glee on Fox.  Also, Fringe, House, and Chuck.  And get a DVR, it’s the 21st century.

I realized I forgot the the best possible USB 3.0 product.

5) Combined USB 3.0 Host and USB 3.0 Flash Express Card.

This is the ExpressCard that has both a USB 3.0 Host and a USB 3.0 Flash Drive embedded in it.

Basically, the USB 3.0 Flash Drive adds storage, it has 100GB or more of storage space for your data, pictures, music video as a backup or extra storage for your Netbook.

This means it uses the ExpressCard USB 3.0 connector inside the PC and looks like an attached USB 3.0 Peripheral to the notebook/netbook PC.

Also, the product will have a USB 3.0 Host in it.  This uses the ExpressCard PCI-e connector on the ExpressCard, and provides 1 or 2 or more additional USB ports with the full 4 Gbits/sec adding more throughput from these ports into the laptop.  This Host looks like an attached USB 3.0 Host on the PCI-e bus.

For a 6th USB 3.0 product would add an additional external USB 3.0 Device A-Plug to the product above.

When you remove the product above, you use the USB 3.0 Device A-Plug that could be plugged into any standard PC USB  Host port.  The disadvantage, is that you probably end up with a Plug that sticks out somewhere on this card that can get bumped or broken, unless there is a way to fold it up.