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Samsung's next flagship smartphone, which may be released sooner than later due to the Note 7 fiasco, may not feature a 3.5mm headphone jack. In fact, Samsung may be one of many manufacturers to make the jump from the 3.5mm headphone jack to USB-C for audio. The USB Implementers Forum published the Audio Device Class 3.0 specification that brings USB Audio over USB Type-C. What this means is that "mobile devices including smartphones, tablets and ultraportable laptops could ditch the headphone jack in the very near future without worrying about having to bake audio support into USB-C or a new, proprietary port," writes Chris Smith via BGR. SamMobile adds: "Removing the dedicated audio plug will also allow OEMs to create smartphones that are slimmer and have better water resistance capabilities."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from AnandTech: The USB Implementers Forum this week published the USB Audio Device Class 3.0 (direct download) specification, which standardizes audio over USB Type-C interface. The new spec enables hardware makers to eliminate traditional 3.5mm mini-jacks from their devices and use USB-C ports to connect headsets and other audio equipment. Makers of peripherals can also build their audio solutions, which use USB-C instead of traditional analog connectors. Developers of the standard hope that elimination of mini-jacks will help to make devices slimmer, smarter and less power hungry. As reported, the USB Audio Device Class 3.0 specification supports both analog and digital audio. Analog audio is easy to implement and it does not impact data transfers and other functionality of USB-C cables since it uses the two secondary bus (SBU) pins. The USB ADC 3.0 defines minimum interoperability across analog and digital devices in order to avoid confusion of end-users because of incompatibility. In fact, all ADC 3.0-compliant hosts should support the so-called headset adapter devices, which allow to connect analog headsets to USB-C. However, digital audio is one of the primary reasons why companies like Intel wanted to develop the USB-C audio tech on the first place, hence, expect them to promote it. According to the USB ADC 3.0 standard, digital USB-C headphones will feature special multi-function processing units (MPUs), which will, to a large degree, define the feature set and quality of headsets. The MPUs will handle host and sink synchronization (this is a key challenge for digital USB audio), digital-to-analog conversion, low-latency active noise cancellation, acoustic echo canceling, equalization, microphone automatic gain control, volume control and others. Such chips will also contain programmable amplifiers and pre-amplifiers, which are currently located inside devices. Besides, USB ADC 3.0-compatible MPUs will also support USB Audio Type-III and Type-IV formats (the latest compressed formats), but will retain compatibility with formats supported by ADC 1.0 and 2.0. Finally, among the mandated things set to be supported by USB-C Audio devices are new Power Domains (allows devices to put certain domains in sleep mode when not in use) as well as BADD (basic audio device definition) 3.0 features for saving power and simplified discovery and management of various audio equipment (each type of devices has its own BADD profile).

jones_supa writes: USB Type-C connection is showing up in more and more devices, and Google is rolling support for the interface in its Android M operating system. The most significant additions relate to the USB Power Delivery spec. Charging will now work in both directions. That effectively means that Type-C devices can be used as external batteries for other devices. Android M is also finally introducing a feature that musicmakers have been long asking for: MIDI support. This builds on some of the audio features Google introduced in Android 5, including reduction in latency, multichannel audio stream mixing, and support for USB microphones, amplifiers, speakers, and other accessories. As others have written, music and media creation apps are much more prevalent in iOS than they are in Android, and Google hopes turning that around.

orasio writes: One of the most frustrating first-world problems ever (trying to connect an upside-down Micro-USB connector) could disappear soon. The Type-C connector for USB has been declared ready for production by the USB Promoter Group (PDF). "With the Type-C spec finalized, it now comes down to the USB-IF to actually implement the sockets, plugs, cables, adapters, and devices. The problem is that there are billions of existing USB devices and cables that will need adapters and new cables to work with new Type-C devices. It’s a lot like when Apple released the Lightning connector, but on an even grander scale. Further exacerbating the issue is the fact that China, the EU, and the GSMA have all agreed that new mobile devices use Micro-USB for charging — though it might be as simple as including a Micro-USB-to-Type-C adapter with every new smartphone."

cylonlover writes "The USB 3.0 Promoter Group has used CES 2013 to announce an enhancement to the USB 3.0 (aka SuperSpeed USB) standard that will see the throughput performance of USB 3.0 double from 5 Gbps to 10 Gbps. The speed boost will come courtesy of enhanced USB connectors and cables that are fully backward compatible with existing USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 devices. The 10 Gbps SuperSpeed USB update (pdf) is up for industry review during the first quarter of 2013, with completion of the standard expected by the middle of the year."

judgecorp writes "The USB 3.0 Promoter Group has published a Power Delivery standard which will deliver up to 100W. The specification (press release with link to full details) includes new bi-directional — and backward compatible — USB cables, and has been proposed as the new connector between mains adapters and laptops, eliminating e-waste by standardizing a proprietary component." At home, only having to run one cable to the wall might be nice, and being able to grab some juice from any friend may end the disaster that is forgetting your laptop power brick when on the road. And imagine only having to pack a single power hub instead of three or four redundant transformers (how many people don't use their laptop to charge their phone nowadays?).

Sarah Sharp writes "Intel's Open Source Technology Center is working on USB 3.0 support for Linux. USB 3.0 has wire speeds of 5Gbps and promises to be 10 times faster than USB 2.0. A recent video demo shows speeds that are 3.5 times faster than USB 2.0. The USB 3.0 drivers will be submitted to the mainline kernel when the eXtensible host controller interface (xHCI) specification reaches a 1.0 release."

Slashback with a followup on the perpetual motion DeLorean, a word on RIAA bank-account-jacking, a reminder about the fast-tracked vote on software patents in the EU, the real meaning of "high speed USB" and more. Read on below for the details.

Now even less than a week ... mpawlo writes "As reported by Greplaw, although I am still looking for further confirmation, it seems like the EU vote on software patentability has been moved from the late fall to June 30, 2003. Yes, that is in one (1) week. If you have more information and another source - please comment on this news item."

Mikael writes: "Personally, I find it somewhat disturbing from a democracy perspective that this proposal seems to be fast-tracked in the middle of the summer, when most Europeans want to focus on whether they should have strawberry or vanilla ice cream. In Sweden, we also got our Swedish version of the DMCA this week. I guess the ice cream will have to wait."

DoSthAboutIt points out that "A 'Petition for a Free Europe without Software Patents' has gained more than 150000 signatures. Among the supporters are more than 2000 company owners and chief executives and 25000 developpers and engineers from all sectors of the European information and telecommunication industries, as well as more than 2000 scientists and 180 lawyers. Companies like Siemens, IBM, Alcatel and Nokia lead the list of those whose researchers and developpers want to protect programming freedom and copyright property against what they see as a 'patent landgrab.' The whole article can be found here, including some statistics like signatories by country"

The story of Peng. mantispraying writes "Looks like the college student who settled with the the RIAA for $12,000, his entire life savings, has recouped all of his money thanks to a very generous file sharing community. Also, the search engine he created that got him in trouble is back online, for demonstration purposes only, of course."

Reader T points out that while one of the students who lost his life savings to RIAA has made it back through PayPal donations, "the other, Dan Peng, is still short about $12,000. Brother, can you spare a dime?"

I'd prefer the garrote and the stick, but hey. Mark Ferguson writes: "I attended the FTC spam forum. It seems I was on their call list :-) I parlayed that into getting several others on the panels as well. While there I spoke with bulk emailers and other industry folks. Some people defined Confirmed OPT-IN to mean you sending a confirmation that the email address was subscribed so they were doing double, confirmed OPT-IN.

My heads spins.

What I figured from what I learned was these folks truly refused to accept real definitions the Service Providers have been using for years so I decided to do a site for just this. ... Anyway, reboot, aka Andrew Cockrell myself and another built The Carrot and the Stick to explain email, define the best practices and to get people to abide by them.

Thoughts, comments and/or suggestions?"

Sooner or later, that DeLorean's going to land someone in jail. hackwrench writes "According to channel WSMV news, Alternate Energy Inventor Carl Tilley's compound was raided. Tilley was previously mentioned on Slashdot here."

Tilley had announced the then-upcoming demonstration of his perpetual-motion DeLorean.

My nanodots can fit inside your nanodots! Rocky Rawstern writes "I recently had the distinct pleasure to interview one of my favorite authors, Wil McCarthy. Upon completing three of his latest books - two sci-fi and one work of non-fiction - I realized that others would probably enjoy his ponderings as much as I. The questions for this interview stem from my own interest in programmable matter, and the awe-inspiring possibilities raised by Wil in his book Hacking Matter."

How to succeed (not necessarily) in business. jameshowison writes "A few months ago Ask Slashdot published Kevin Crowston's question on what makes open source software successful ... well the results are in and the paper typed. We ran the responses through a funky content analyser (called Grad Students). The metrics that academics and the industry have used for years simply don't work for OSS.

More and more it seems that we'll need to survey the number of job offers developers get and the size of the community to get at this one ..."

You sound very familiar to me. Interested Observer writes "Thanks to a slashdot article discussing false positives using Soundex I thought if Soundex can be used for something as important as "no-fly" lists then certainly we should be able to get some entertainment value out of it! See if your Soundex last name-counterparts show up in a Google News search."

A member of the USB-IF Administration writes to dispel the confusion raised by the seeming conflict between many USB products' labels and their actual data-transfer speeds:

"The source of confusion derives from the fact that USB specification revision numbers and data-transfer rates are often being used in place of the logo on consumer packaging, a purpose for which they were not originally intended. The USB-IF's recommended nomenclature for consumers is 'USB' for slower speed products (1.5 Mb/s and 12Mb/s) and "Hi-Speed USB" for high-speed products (480Mb/s), as signified in the USB logos that were introduced in late 2000. In short, consumers wishing to be certain they are getting the performance they paid for in their USB products can use the logo for clarification.

The USB-IF's naming and packaging recommendations for low- or full-speed USB products, as listed at the website http://www.usb.org/developers/packaging, state that such products can carry only the basic version of the USB logo, which simply states "Certified USB." We state clearly that manufacturers should avoid using terminology such as USB 2.0 Full Speed, Full Speed USB or USB 2.0. These formal recommendations were published to the USB-IF membership and posted on the website in August 2002.

The USB-IF is a nonprofit industry organization. We do not and cannot control how manufacturers label their products. We do work continuously with system and peripheral manufacturers, striving to provide consistency in the use of this nomenclature and the logos. The logo indicates that a product's performance against and conformance with the standard have been tested, and that the product has passed the USB compliance program.

Anyone having questions about the performance of a product should contact the manufacturer for clarification.

For a brief Q & A on this topic, please visit our website at http://www.usb.org/info/usb_nomenclature."

Slashback with a followup on the perpetual motion DeLorean, a word on RIAA bank-account-jacking, a reminder about the fast-tracked vote on software patents in the EU, the real meaning of "high speed USB" and more. Read on below for the details.

Now even less than a week ... mpawlo writes "As reported by Greplaw, although I am still looking for further confirmation, it seems like the EU vote on software patentability has been moved from the late fall to June 30, 2003. Yes, that is in one (1) week. If you have more information and another source - please comment on this news item."

Mikael writes: "Personally, I find it somewhat disturbing from a democracy perspective that this proposal seems to be fast-tracked in the middle of the summer, when most Europeans want to focus on whether they should have strawberry or vanilla ice cream. In Sweden, we also got our Swedish version of the DMCA this week. I guess the ice cream will have to wait."

DoSthAboutIt points out that "A 'Petition for a Free Europe without Software Patents' has gained more than 150000 signatures. Among the supporters are more than 2000 company owners and chief executives and 25000 developpers and engineers from all sectors of the European information and telecommunication industries, as well as more than 2000 scientists and 180 lawyers. Companies like Siemens, IBM, Alcatel and Nokia lead the list of those whose researchers and developpers want to protect programming freedom and copyright property against what they see as a 'patent landgrab.' The whole article can be found here, including some statistics like signatories by country"

The story of Peng. mantispraying writes "Looks like the college student who settled with the the RIAA for $12,000, his entire life savings, has recouped all of his money thanks to a very generous file sharing community. Also, the search engine he created that got him in trouble is back online, for demonstration purposes only, of course."

Reader T points out that while one of the students who lost his life savings to RIAA has made it back through PayPal donations, "the other, Dan Peng, is still short about $12,000. Brother, can you spare a dime?"

I'd prefer the garrote and the stick, but hey. Mark Ferguson writes: "I attended the FTC spam forum. It seems I was on their call list :-) I parlayed that into getting several others on the panels as well. While there I spoke with bulk emailers and other industry folks. Some people defined Confirmed OPT-IN to mean you sending a confirmation that the email address was subscribed so they were doing double, confirmed OPT-IN.

My heads spins.

What I figured from what I learned was these folks truly refused to accept real definitions the Service Providers have been using for years so I decided to do a site for just this. ... Anyway, reboot, aka Andrew Cockrell myself and another built The Carrot and the Stick to explain email, define the best practices and to get people to abide by them.

Thoughts, comments and/or suggestions?"

Sooner or later, that DeLorean's going to land someone in jail. hackwrench writes "According to channel WSMV news, Alternate Energy Inventor Carl Tilley's compound was raided. Tilley was previously mentioned on Slashdot here."

Tilley had announced the then-upcoming demonstration of his perpetual-motion DeLorean.

My nanodots can fit inside your nanodots! Rocky Rawstern writes "I recently had the distinct pleasure to interview one of my favorite authors, Wil McCarthy. Upon completing three of his latest books - two sci-fi and one work of non-fiction - I realized that others would probably enjoy his ponderings as much as I. The questions for this interview stem from my own interest in programmable matter, and the awe-inspiring possibilities raised by Wil in his book Hacking Matter."

How to succeed (not necessarily) in business. jameshowison writes "A few months ago Ask Slashdot published Kevin Crowston's question on what makes open source software successful ... well the results are in and the paper typed. We ran the responses through a funky content analyser (called Grad Students). The metrics that academics and the industry have used for years simply don't work for OSS.

More and more it seems that we'll need to survey the number of job offers developers get and the size of the community to get at this one ..."

You sound very familiar to me. Interested Observer writes "Thanks to a slashdot article discussing false positives using Soundex I thought if Soundex can be used for something as important as "no-fly" lists then certainly we should be able to get some entertainment value out of it! See if your Soundex last name-counterparts show up in a Google News search."

A member of the USB-IF Administration writes to dispel the confusion raised by the seeming conflict between many USB products' labels and their actual data-transfer speeds:

"The source of confusion derives from the fact that USB specification revision numbers and data-transfer rates are often being used in place of the logo on consumer packaging, a purpose for which they were not originally intended. The USB-IF's recommended nomenclature for consumers is 'USB' for slower speed products (1.5 Mb/s and 12Mb/s) and "Hi-Speed USB" for high-speed products (480Mb/s), as signified in the USB logos that were introduced in late 2000. In short, consumers wishing to be certain they are getting the performance they paid for in their USB products can use the logo for clarification.

The USB-IF's naming and packaging recommendations for low- or full-speed USB products, as listed at the website http://www.usb.org/developers/packaging, state that such products can carry only the basic version of the USB logo, which simply states "Certified USB." We state clearly that manufacturers should avoid using terminology such as USB 2.0 Full Speed, Full Speed USB or USB 2.0. These formal recommendations were published to the USB-IF membership and posted on the website in August 2002.

The USB-IF is a nonprofit industry organization. We do not and cannot control how manufacturers label their products. We do work continuously with system and peripheral manufacturers, striving to provide consistency in the use of this nomenclature and the logos. The logo indicates that a product's performance against and conformance with the standard have been tested, and that the product has passed the USB compliance program.

Anyone having questions about the performance of a product should contact the manufacturer for clarification.

For a brief Q & A on this topic, please visit our website at http://www.usb.org/info/usb_nomenclature."

Slashback with a followup on the perpetual motion DeLorean, a word on RIAA bank-account-jacking, a reminder about the fast-tracked vote on software patents in the EU, the real meaning of "high speed USB" and more. Read on below for the details.

Now even less than a week ... mpawlo writes "As reported by Greplaw, although I am still looking for further confirmation, it seems like the EU vote on software patentability has been moved from the late fall to June 30, 2003. Yes, that is in one (1) week. If you have more information and another source - please comment on this news item."

Mikael writes: "Personally, I find it somewhat disturbing from a democracy perspective that this proposal seems to be fast-tracked in the middle of the summer, when most Europeans want to focus on whether they should have strawberry or vanilla ice cream. In Sweden, we also got our Swedish version of the DMCA this week. I guess the ice cream will have to wait."

DoSthAboutIt points out that "A 'Petition for a Free Europe without Software Patents' has gained more than 150000 signatures. Among the supporters are more than 2000 company owners and chief executives and 25000 developpers and engineers from all sectors of the European information and telecommunication industries, as well as more than 2000 scientists and 180 lawyers. Companies like Siemens, IBM, Alcatel and Nokia lead the list of those whose researchers and developpers want to protect programming freedom and copyright property against what they see as a 'patent landgrab.' The whole article can be found here, including some statistics like signatories by country"

The story of Peng. mantispraying writes "Looks like the college student who settled with the the RIAA for $12,000, his entire life savings, has recouped all of his money thanks to a very generous file sharing community. Also, the search engine he created that got him in trouble is back online, for demonstration purposes only, of course."

Reader T points out that while one of the students who lost his life savings to RIAA has made it back through PayPal donations, "the other, Dan Peng, is still short about $12,000. Brother, can you spare a dime?"

I'd prefer the garrote and the stick, but hey. Mark Ferguson writes: "I attended the FTC spam forum. It seems I was on their call list :-) I parlayed that into getting several others on the panels as well. While there I spoke with bulk emailers and other industry folks. Some people defined Confirmed OPT-IN to mean you sending a confirmation that the email address was subscribed so they were doing double, confirmed OPT-IN.

My heads spins.

What I figured from what I learned was these folks truly refused to accept real definitions the Service Providers have been using for years so I decided to do a site for just this. ... Anyway, reboot, aka Andrew Cockrell myself and another built The Carrot and the Stick to explain email, define the best practices and to get people to abide by them.

Thoughts, comments and/or suggestions?"

Sooner or later, that DeLorean's going to land someone in jail. hackwrench writes "According to channel WSMV news, Alternate Energy Inventor Carl Tilley's compound was raided. Tilley was previously mentioned on Slashdot here."

Tilley had announced the then-upcoming demonstration of his perpetual-motion DeLorean.

My nanodots can fit inside your nanodots! Rocky Rawstern writes "I recently had the distinct pleasure to interview one of my favorite authors, Wil McCarthy. Upon completing three of his latest books - two sci-fi and one work of non-fiction - I realized that others would probably enjoy his ponderings as much as I. The questions for this interview stem from my own interest in programmable matter, and the awe-inspiring possibilities raised by Wil in his book Hacking Matter."

How to succeed (not necessarily) in business. jameshowison writes "A few months ago Ask Slashdot published Kevin Crowston's question on what makes open source software successful ... well the results are in and the paper typed. We ran the responses through a funky content analyser (called Grad Students). The metrics that academics and the industry have used for years simply don't work for OSS.

More and more it seems that we'll need to survey the number of job offers developers get and the size of the community to get at this one ..."

You sound very familiar to me. Interested Observer writes "Thanks to a slashdot article discussing false positives using Soundex I thought if Soundex can be used for something as important as "no-fly" lists then certainly we should be able to get some entertainment value out of it! See if your Soundex last name-counterparts show up in a Google News search."

A member of the USB-IF Administration writes to dispel the confusion raised by the seeming conflict between many USB products' labels and their actual data-transfer speeds:

"The source of confusion derives from the fact that USB specification revision numbers and data-transfer rates are often being used in place of the logo on consumer packaging, a purpose for which they were not originally intended. The USB-IF's recommended nomenclature for consumers is 'USB' for slower speed products (1.5 Mb/s and 12Mb/s) and "Hi-Speed USB" for high-speed products (480Mb/s), as signified in the USB logos that were introduced in late 2000. In short, consumers wishing to be certain they are getting the performance they paid for in their USB products can use the logo for clarification.

The USB-IF's naming and packaging recommendations for low- or full-speed USB products, as listed at the website http://www.usb.org/developers/packaging, state that such products can carry only the basic version of the USB logo, which simply states "Certified USB." We state clearly that manufacturers should avoid using terminology such as USB 2.0 Full Speed, Full Speed USB or USB 2.0. These formal recommendations were published to the USB-IF membership and posted on the website in August 2002.

The USB-IF is a nonprofit industry organization. We do not and cannot control how manufacturers label their products. We do work continuously with system and peripheral manufacturers, striving to provide consistency in the use of this nomenclature and the logos. The logo indicates that a product's performance against and conformance with the standard have been tested, and that the product has passed the USB compliance program.

Anyone having questions about the performance of a product should contact the manufacturer for clarification.

For a brief Q & A on this topic, please visit our website at http://www.usb.org/info/usb_nomenclature."

Teese writes "According to this Bangkok Post article, in December the USB Forum renamed USB 1.1 to USB 2, and USB 2 stayed as USB 2. They did this because consumers were demanding that the computers they buy have USB2 on board. The story also claims that both Sony & toshiba have released laptops with the USB2 that is really USB1.1. This was the first I had heard of this and the article said the change took place in December, has the USB Forum really been able to pull a fast one on us?"

mrbinary writes "I hadn't checked the USB website for awhile, but it seems that the USB 2.0 spec is final and the speeds are confirmed at up to 480 MB/sec. Not too bad - hardware should be available shortly and the spec is fully reverse-compatible with USB 1.1. There's a PDF document that talks about the goodies upcoming including: 'A first-ever demonstration of multiple MPEG videos being played on a ZIP drive connected to a PC via a USB 2.0 Bridge. The demonstration featured an FPGA bridge designed and manufactured by In-System Design, an I/O design and engineering firm specializing in USB bridging solutions.'" USB is actually a cool standard, but cooler on paper sometimes than in real life. Hopefully 2.0 will squeeze ideal and reality a little closer together. [Updated 4:00 GMT 22 Aug by timothy:] As reader David Bastiani points out, 480 Mb/sec sounds a lot more reasonable than 480 MB/sec. Maybe that will make it easier to make the specs meet reality;)

mrbinary writes "I hadn't checked the USB website for awhile, but it seems that the USB 2.0 spec is final and the speeds are confirmed at up to 480 MB/sec. Not too bad - hardware should be available shortly and the spec is fully reverse-compatible with USB 1.1. There's a PDF document that talks about the goodies upcoming including: 'A first-ever demonstration of multiple MPEG videos being played on a ZIP drive connected to a PC via a USB 2.0 Bridge. The demonstration featured an FPGA bridge designed and manufactured by In-System Design, an I/O design and engineering firm specializing in USB bridging solutions.'" USB is actually a cool standard, but cooler on paper sometimes than in real life. Hopefully 2.0 will squeeze ideal and reality a little closer together. [Updated 4:00 GMT 22 Aug by timothy:] As reader David Bastiani points out, 480 Mb/sec sounds a lot more reasonable than 480 MB/sec. Maybe that will make it easier to make the specs meet reality;)

Don Faulkner asks: "One of the features of USB that people are really excited about is the 'multi-headed support.' In other words, I should be able to connect several sets of [monitor, keyboard, mouse (and other stuff like joystick, printer, etc.)] to one computer, maybe distribute these throughout my house, and move seamlessly from one to the next. What if we turn this around? What if I wanted to control several computers in a rack, all from one location? This is done today with KVM (Keybard/Video/Mouse) switches, some of which are very sophisticated. Could USB do the same thing? Most computers have two USB ports, so you could theoretically daisy-chain the computers together, but this would be bad for reliability (take down one computer, and everything past it on the chain disappears). So, we would probably want to use a hub, and attach the head to that. Has anyone tried this? Anyone seen it done?" Here's an interesting sidenote: the USB 2.0 specs were just released. You might check out what they have to say about KVM switches.

Jadecristal writes: "From the contact info on the USB group contact page under Microsoft's record, one might get the impression that Tux worked for Microsoft. Perhaps he is being held against his will ... " Would any Microsoft employees care to disclose the whereabouts of a certain "Mr. Tux the penguin," and perhaps say which freezers he favors while in Redmond? Better yet, would any Microsoft employees like to comment on how many internal-to-Microsoft servers Mr. Tux currently powers?

Jadecristal writes: "From the contact info on the USB group contact page under Microsoft's record, one might get the impression that Tux worked for Microsoft. Perhaps he is being held against his will ... " Would any Microsoft employees care to disclose the whereabouts of a certain "Mr. Tux the penguin," and perhaps say which freezers he favors while in Redmond? Better yet, would any Microsoft employees like to comment on how many internal-to-Microsoft servers Mr. Tux currently powers?

I just saw this on the Linux USB Mailing List: Up until a few days ago all the class specification documents were available for anyone for free. Those classes are important for the Linux USB development. It appears now, after the USB group got the Slashdot beany award, that the access for those documents is now restricted to members only, which are required to pay $2,500 per year. Is this just a coincidence? You can test it here.

PooF writes "USB 2.0 has been announced. It seems sweet, its faster than firewire at 480 Mb/s. An article from pc.ign.com on USB 2.0. Oh yea these are only the specs they hope to achieve no word on progress in implementing them."